100 Boots Along The Ties
100 Boots Along The Ties

© Eleanor Antin

100 Boots Along The Ties
100 Boots Along The Ties

On view

Photography

100 Boots Along The Ties,

1971

Eleanor Antin, born 1935, New York, NY; active San Diego, CA
Photographs by Philip Steinmetz, 1944–2013; born Des Plaines, IL; active San Diego, CA
2020-5.45

I bought fifty pairs of boots, big men’s boots, in the Army-Navy surplus. I think they cost $200 in those days for all of them. Now they would cost a fortune. It was six cents for a postage stamp, for a first-class postcard. In the middle of the piece, it became eight cents. I didn’t like that. I was indignant.

But I put together a mailing list. When I had a pretty big one, I started mailing out my 100 Boots and I didn’t have to leave town. . . . Suddenly they hit all over the place. . . . Like The Washington Post did this interesting thing. They’d print a different Boot image on each page. . . . Then people would write to the paper and ask if Eleanor Antin would put them on her mailing list. The paper forwarded the letters to me and I’d add the names to my mailing list. . . .

Some people, when they’d move would let me know their new mailbox, their new address. . . . Other people wouldn’t and when their cards were returned, they were removed. The piece went on for two-and-a-half years.

Eleanor Antin, from an “Oral History interview with Eleanor Antin,” by Judith Olch Richards, May 8–9, 2009, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Information

Title
100 Boots Along The Ties
Dates

1971

Maker
Eleanor Antin
Photographs by Philip Steinmetz
Medium
Postcard
Dimensions
11.4 × 17.8 cm (4 1/2 × 7 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
Object Number
2020-5.45
Place Depicted

North America, United States, California, Del Mar

Inscription
Printed on verso, upper left: 201 Pacific Ave., Solana Beach, California 92075 Printed on verso, lower left: Eleanor Antin | 100 BOOTS ALONG THE TIES | Del Mar, California | Sept. 8, 1971 2:00 P.M. | (Photo: Philip Steinmetz) Printed on verso, center (vertical): FRYE & SMITH, LTD., SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA In graphite, verso, lower right: 45/51
Type
performance art, mail art, postcards
Subject
boots

The artist; [Richard Saltoun Gallery, New York, NY]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum, 2020.

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