L.H.O.O.Q.

It might seem to be possible to look further to Marcel Duchamp as a forerunner of mailart in terms of the anti-art and antiestablishment agenda that he demonstrated in his subversive and abusive defacing of a postcard of the Mona Lisa, 'L.H.O.O.Q.' 1919.3 Yet Duchamp and the Dadaists readily exhibited in the established art marketing system, thereby supporting the very institutions that they purported to attack. Mailart however has always eschewed art marketing, even if mailartists have at times - or as parallel activity - used the art marketing system for their non-mailart activity. Whilst many artists have used the postal system, there are no contenders for the position that Johnson holds as originator of the system of exchange that is mailart.