Jerry Dreva (1945–1997) was an artist, writer, performer, activist, and teacher from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was a principal proponent of

Mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Scho ...

. His efforts were concentrated in the areas of self-documentation and performance, often employing subterfuge and a wry sense of humor. He was a founding member (with Robert J. Lambert) of the conceptual rock band Les Petites Bon-Bons.

Early work and activism

Active in the local civil rights and anti-war movements in the late 1960s, Dreva was devoted to the cause of gay rights on the local and national level. He was a founding member (together with Robert J. Lambert) of Les Petites Bon-Bons, a flamboyantly attired musical group that never played a single concert. In fact, they never so much as picked up an instrument. Instead they dressed as glitter rock musicians of the era (1970’s) and were frequently featured in newspapers and magazines as Les Petite Bon Bons. In one of his most famous performances he would sneak out at night and spray paint public buildings in South Milwaukee. The next morning, in his role as a reporter for the local South Milwaukee weekly, the Voice-Journal, he would report glowingly on these graffiti events sometimes signed by the “Art Gangster” thus creating a countercultural figure and simultaneously influencing the way in which that figure was portrayed in the media. It was a ruse that lasted several years. As a mail artist he corresponded with individuals well known for their work in this field including

On Kawara was a Japanese conceptual artist who lived in New York City from 1965. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976. Early life Kawara was born in Kariya, Japan on December 24, 1932. After graduating fro ...

Ray Johnson Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as

Ben Vautier Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben (born 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy), is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called ''Magazin'' between 1958 and 1973. Biography Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 Ju ...

, Coum Transmissions,

General Idea General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994. As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated ac ...

and members of Asco. His work was included in countless mail art exhibits both nationally and internationally, including ''Extended Sensibilities: Homosexual Presence in Contemporary Art'' at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

in New York in 1982. During the 1980s Dreva became increasingly interested in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

, learning Spanish and spending considerable time in Guatemala, El Salvador and other Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

n countries, where he studied revolutionary movements. He was a supporter of the

Shining Path The Shining Path ( es, Sendero Luminoso), officially the Communist Party of Peru (, abbr. PCP), is a communist guerrilla group in Peru following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the Commun ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

, but adamant in insisting that gay rights be included in their agenda.

Legacy

Dreva died of a heart attack at his Milwaukee home in 1997 at the age of fifty-two. His work has attracted the attention of a growing number of writers and curators and has been featured in catalogs and exhibitions from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dreva, Jerry 1945 births 1997 deaths American gay writers Gay artists Artists from Milwaukee 20th-century American artists People from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin 20th-century LGBT people American LGBT artists