Mail art (dedicated to Baudhuin Simon - Belgium)
Mail art is art which uses the postal system as a medium. The term "mail art" can refer to an individual message, the medium through which it is sent, and an art movement.
Mail artists typically exchange ephemera in the form of illustrated letters; zines; rubberstamped, decorated, or illustrated envelopes; artist trading cards; postcards; artistamps; faux postage; mail-interviews; naked mail; and three-dimensional objects.
An amorphous international mail art network, involving thousands of participants in over fifty countries, evolved between the 1950s and the 1990s from the work of Ray Johnson.[citation needed] It was influenced by other movements, including Dada and Fluxus.
One theme in mail art is that of commerce-free exchange; early mail art was, in part, a snub of gallery art, juried shows, and exclusivity in art. A saying in the mail art movement is "senders receive," meaning that one must not expect mail art to be sent to them unless they are also actively participating in the movement.
There is a rich history of creative examples sent through the post. The most familiar example is the illustrations on envelopes carrying first day issue postage stamps, which philatelists refer to as first day covers, but mail art encompasses other "decorated envelopes" as well as a wide range of other procedures and media such as rubber stamps and artistamps. Mail art is traditionally, though not always, distinguished from simply "mailed art," which is art that does not truly use the postal service but is simply regular art when sent through the mail.
When the electronic telecommunications network known as the Internet gave rise to e-mail art, conventional mail-art artists came to refer to the international postal service as the 'paper net' or snail-mail net. When a group of these artists are in some way linked through their works they are collectively referred to as a Mail Art Network or the Eternal Network.
The Mail-Art Network concept has roots in the work of earlier groups, including the Fluxus artists and the notion of 'multiples' or artworks manufactured as editions. Most commonly, Mail-Art Network artists have made and exchanged postcards, designed custom-made stamps or 'artistamps', and designed decorated or illustrated envelopes. But even large and unwieldy three-dimensional objects have been known to have been sent by Mail-Art Network artists, for many of whom the message and the medium are synonymous.
Fundamentally, mail art in the context of a Mail Art Network is a form of conceptual art. It is a 'movement' with no membership and no leaders.
Mail No Mi
Click on (you can contribute to many mail art projects):
http://members.pingnet.ch/nbt/mail_art2.htm
M.Nomized - Evolutiv Loops - 2002 - unpublished - Mp3
P. Kunst Keller, Germany.
