Lausanne: Galerie Soft Press/Soft Art Press, 1975-1979. Quarto, folded sheets (unfolded measure 29.5 x 21 cm). Original illustrated self-wrappers, both black-and-white and in color; 8-14 pp. each, with artists' contributions in offset, silkscreen, and rubber stamps, including some original artwork.

A collection of 14 out of a total of 18 issues published of the quarterly mail art magazine from Switzerland, primarily in French and edited by Noémi Maidan and Max Bucher. The magazine featured reproductions of postcards, rubber stamps, mail art notices, and announcements of publications worldwide, and described itself as follows: "Soft Art Press is a little magazine dealing with non-static art: video, mail-art, artists' public performances."

Some of the featured artists and topics covered include Sylvia and Hernan Sanchez, Max Bucher, Urs Bänninger, Jorg Glusberg, H.R. Ambauen, Debra Rapoport, William Thomas, René Aeberhard, the Untel group, Galerie ECART, women in art, La Mamelle Arts Center in San Francisco, video art at the Second Biennial of Swiss Art, Librije Zwolle, Joseph Beuys, Freedom Research Center Japan, Th. Muellenbach, Natalia LL, W.G. Cassel, Ruedi Schill, Monique Bailly-Roulin, Endre Tot, Dick Higgins, Anna Banana Productons, Ben Vautier, Klaus Groh, Ulises Carrion and Other Books and So, Paolo Brusky, Scott Helmes, Vittore Baroni, Janos Urban, Gabor Toth, Pawel Petasz, and others.

Several of the issues are focused around a central theme. No. 11 is a special issue on the art of Japan, featuring contributions by Chizuko Komishi, Tatsuo Yamamoto, Ju Imanishi, S. Shimamoto, Keigo Yamamoto, and others. No. 15 is subtitled "Multi-Média Art Archives" and includes responses to a questionnaire that editor Noémi Maidan sent to a list of international art archives. Issue no. 18 focuses on Central and South America and features Latin American mail-artists as well as Clemente Padin and Jorge Caraballo's detention in Uruguay.

Sold together with a poster advertising subscriptions for Soft Art Press, and issue no. 19 of Art Power, from November 1975. This magazine was produced by Impact Gallery in Lausanne, who collaborated with Galerie Soft Press.

(Artists' Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art, Gwen Allen, 2011, p. 298).

An important collection of a scarce publication; as of June 2023, OCLC locates only three holdings in North American institutions, at least one of which is incomplete.

Book ID: 52933

Price: $3,750.00