V. O. Stomps-Award of the City of Mainz 1993

in the section Magazine: PIPS Dada Corporation

The V. O. Stomps Award for the section Magazine was unanimously awarded to Claudia Pütz for her mail art project Pips Dada Corporation. On set topics like Mystery-Secret, Seahorses and Flying Fish, Heart & Merz, Duet & Duel, Magic & Circus or Paradox the editor invites a number of artists and authors to contribute to individual mailings, displaying a wealth of imagination and an amazing sense of topicality, absurdity etc. - hence the subtitle Magazine for UnZeitgeist & UnCommerce. First introduced with a Manifesto on Dilettism which was recited at so-called Pips Dada soirées, simultaneously accompanied by tin drums and toy trumpets, this extraordinary magazine keeps changing its format and packaging; frequently it appears in cardboard boxes containing other cardboard boxes; printed and written pieces, randomly picked up objects and art sit side by side in corresponding as well as contrasting unity - all contributions are originals! In Claudia's own words, "PIPS started as a reaction against zeitgeist magazines such as Tempo and Wiener. I thought that it must be possible to publish a magazine which renders texts sensual, to create an awareness of our hilarious reality, as it were... I am convinced that lots of people do not just want to read, but would rather have something to look at, to touch, to smell or so."

What is PIPS?

PIPS is a dialect word (used in the Rhineland) for a head cold

or: a disease afflicting chicken (symptom: inflamed coating of the tongue)

or: a DADAIST fantasy word!!!!

Karl Riha