Ruud Janssen studied Physics and Mathematics. He became active with mail art in 1980 and did several international mail art projects. From 1994 till 2001 he has conducted interviews with Fluxus and mail artists in different communication forms; the results have been published in booklets and on the internet since 1996. In later years he focused more on acrylic painting and individual correspondences.
Work
Janssen publishes articles, magazines and booklets with his TAM-Publications and participates in international mail art projects, collaborations and exhibitions. He founded IUOMA in 1988 and is also the curator of the TAM-Rubberstamp Archive, the result of a Mail Art collection that has been accumulated by him from 1983 till now. The archive contains prints, original rubberstamps, magazines and literature. It is the longest time a mail art project has run ever. In 2003 Litsa Spathi founded together with Ruud Janssen the Fluxus Heidelberg Center for which they are building up a collection of Fluxus material and where they also publish their own works. Janssen was selected to publish an essay as one of eleven contemporary "New Fluxus" artists who are seen to 'inhabit the site of Fluxus, developing and interpreting the Fluxus tradition in a new way.' in a special double issue of the journal Visible Language on Fluxus. In 1994, Janssen began a series of mail-interviews, the body of which are now recognized as an influential contribution in the field of mail art. He interviewed Fluxus and mail art personalities by using all the communication-forms that were available. The question traveled by one form and the answer could be sent back in another form. This concept resulted in a series of mail-interviews. These interviews were published in booklet-form and the complete texts are also available online. In 2008, a selection of the mail-interviews were published in book form. In 1997 Janssen had a solo exhibition of his mail art work and interviews in Guy Bleus' E-Mail Art Archives in Hasselt, Belgium.
