Mark Bloch
Mark Bloch (born January 23, 1956), also known as Pan, P.A.N., Panman, Panpost and the Post Art Network, is an American multi-media artist from Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Since 1982 he has lived in New York City. He is a conceptual artist in the tradition of Dada, the Surrealists, Marcel Duchamp, the Fluxus group and Ray Johnson, and is the publisher of the zine Panmag.
Bloch creates articles, pamphlets, books, and mail art-related projects such as postcards, 'artistamps' and coded envelopes. Bloch's art uses the postal system as well as other (tele)communications media.
He became active with mail art in 1977 and created several international postal art, post-art games including the infamous Last Mail Art Show which created controversy. He also raises eyebrows by eschewing institutionalized anarchy such as Neoism, preferring instead the strategies of Arthur Cravan. However, he supports the work of Neoists and other traffickers in Externality everywhere and is an advocate for artists' rights and against the mythic stereotype of the "starving artist." He adheres to principles originated with Situationism, DIY and other forms of Postmodernism in his theoretical approach to issues of art and commerce but refers to it in his writings as "Pan-Modern."
In 1989, after over a decade working in mail art, he began to work on the Internet and soon after created a "digital performance artwork in progress" called Panscan for Echo Communications. Bloch has done video, performance art and experimental music since the late 1970s and also works with computer networks, e-mail art, information theory, mass media, speaking, journalism and broadcasting. He recently revived his irregularly issued fanzine called Panmag in the form of a cable TV in New York show called Panscan TV.
For the past 14 years, since embarking on his personal Art Strike, Bloch creates a new manifesto every day upon waking. These writings remain unpublished.
