In 1983, PostHype 2.5 documented the mail art project The Catalogue of Ideas. Having found a trove of discarded, unmarked bank envelopes in a dumpster, Jacob stamped them with the words “Life,” “Time,” “Death,” and “Hunger,” wrapped each group of four with a paper band, and asked recipients to transform and return the envelopes. Eighty-five artists from twenty-six nations responded, a selection of which were reproduced in the periodical along with a complete list of participants enclosed in a bank envelope stamped “Artists.”
Japan: Oliveros, AU Shozo Shimamoto, Yumiko Takegawa
Korea: Prof. Kum Nam Baik
Mexico: Luis Arteaga, David Zack
Netherlands: Henk Fakkeldij, Ko De Jonge, VEC Rod Summers, Pier Van Dijk
Poland: Andrej Kwietniewski, Waclaw Ropiecki
Portugal: Antonio Olaio
Sweden: Marten Lindblom, Peter Meyer
Switzerland: Jacqueline Nicod
Uruguay: Clemente Padin
USA: Abracadada, Dr. & Mrs. Al Ackerman, Holly Anderson, John M. Bennett, Edgar Allen Bushmiller, Patti Capaldi, James Chefchis, Jean Claude Christo & Christo, David Cole, Tania Erlij, John Evans, Peter Frank, Rimma & Valeriy Gerlovin, John Held, Jr., Leavenworth Jackson, Jeff, Ray Johnson, Cracker Jack Kid, Jim Klein, Richard Kostelanetz, Richard Meade, Michael Newhard, Tucker Petertil, Carlo Pittore, Bern Porter, Larry Rippel, Rockola, Larry Smith, Lon Spiegelman, Kathy Thompson, B.J. Tisa, Emmet Walsh, Carlos Zerpa, Paul Zelevansky
West Germany: Dietrich Albrecht, Dr. Klaus Groh, Volker Hamann, Jurgen O. Olbrich, Aloys Ohlmann
Yugoslavia: Supek Jaroslav, Dobrica Kamperelic, Andrej Tisma
PostHype was founded in 1981. The first issue was created, using pressed Letraset on paper, as a birthday gift to the artist Steven Durland, and modeled on his satirical mini-magazine Tacit. Early issues of PostHype were printed with an original rubber stamp, hand carved from photographs made using the photobooth machine at the Times Square arcade known as Playland, which recorded the visits of friends and other mail artists to New York City. Later issues expanded to document Jacob’s mail art activities.
Riding Beggar ceased publication in the 1990s. A complete run of PostHype was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1987. Incomplete sets are held by the Getty Research Institute (acquired with the Jean Brown, Bern Porter, Carlo Pittore, and other people’s papers) and active mail art archives such as the Artpool Art Research Center.
The Riding Beggar archive is housed with the John P. Jacob Papers at the Beinecke Rare Books Library, Yale University.
