Probably the biggest mail art news for the week is Sergio Guerrini's La Guerra, which opened September 2, 2023. The full title is: La Guerra - Cosa ha cambiato nel mondo - cosa ha cambiato in te? In English, that's: War - What has it changed in the world - what has it changed in you?
If you have a few minutes, visit the Facebook post to see over 60 photos of the event. I can see a couple of the post cards I sent in, so I'm happy to be included, but whether included or not, this is still an important event historically. Based on the number of works on display, the quality of the works on display, the design of the space, and the crowd in attendance, it looks great. The topic of war is huge and traumatic and has plagued humankind since the beginning. If some enlightened beings, either extraterrestrial or home grown on Earth could figure out a way to prevent wars, that would be miraculous. I don't think it's possible at this time, but maybe in the future. Struggle...conflicts...have always been part of life, but is there a way to stop things from getting so out of hand? A big round of applause to Sergio Guerrini for his efforts!
On the topic of mail art calls, I saw a few other mail art calls / exhibitions this week. Laura Pintus posted images of the Mail Art project exhibition:
Sustainable Development-Health and Wellness, September 1-30, 2023 at the Faber Space in Tempio Pausania, Sardinia, Italy.
On Instagram, mailartrussia posted the following:
"OPEN CALL Mail Art Suburbia
Frunzensky District libraries in St. Petersburg explores the identity of residents of residential areas and suburbs. How do the residents of the non-center feel? What unites their community? How does the architecture of the center and suburbs differ, and how does it affect the self-consciousness of citizens? We invite you to reflect on the self-identity of urban residents in the mail art project Suburbia.
For project send art postal objects that deal with any technique. Everyone is welcome in this project, all ages and skill levels. Please indicate your name, surname, e-mail and postal addresses and your profession or field of activity on the flip side of the postcard. Size: Maximum A4 (21 x 29,7 cm)
Deadline: 30 September 2023. Poststamp date counts.
Mail Art Suburbia
Curator Alevtina Grinmiris
Turku str 22-2-69
Saint Petersburg
192241 Russia
No jury - No return - No fee.
Documentation: Your artwork will be exhibited online the blog mailartrussia.com/suburbia and offline in Saint-Petersburg on October 2023."
On IUOMA, Ilya Semenenko-Basin shared the following info: "The exhibition History of Russian Mail Art opened in Moscow in August (Gallery Davydkovo, Moscow, Kremenchugskaya str., 22). Exhibition curators: Yuri Gik (Gikjuri Rus), Alyona Borschagovska (Olga Seregina).
I visited the exhibition on the 17th of August, I am posting my photos. There are many objects of mail-art in the halls, the accompanying texts by Yuri Gik tell in detail about this phenomenon."
I wish I could teleport and see these exhibitions in person, but I must rely on social media to keep me informed about these far-away happenings. IUOMA is the only social media site dedicated to mail art and this week, I saw many impressive images, so I will document my favorites here:
Here's a fun one. It looks somewhat simplistic, but does it contain a deeper meaning? The cat seems to be frightened by the slow-art plant. Look, my free time to create has always been limited by working full time. I would love to have a studio and make big paintings and ceramics and really master as many creative processes as possible, but you know...I've had to come to an agreement with all the forces involved. The idea of sitting down to make slow art bugs me. I get impatient. I fear ruining it. Can I take a creative vision and make it real? Do I have the skills and patience? Hmpf...I'll make what I make, in the style that is mine. There is the idea that style can be said to be the sum total of an artist's skills and lacks thereof. I like it.
Sometimes a fun little drawing can say more than a big ugly thing in a museum and say it better in a more accessible language. I've seen a good deal of art in museums and much of it is impressive and you can get some value from it, but then there are the pieces that leave me wondering "
How did this get in here?" Was it a CIA plant? or out of control schmoozing?
You can see more works from Spiros on Instagram.
Moving on to the incoming mail, Mail Art News media specialist Ariel Greenwood not only obtains choice reading materials on the topic of mail art, she also loves hunting for used rubber stamps out in the wild. Here's a selection from her recent trip to Arizona.
That TV stamp is going to come in handy. And there's that
Adam R. pink eye and rabies stamp again. While we're on the topic of Adam Roussopoulos, we should note that the deadline for his historically significant
Rubber Portrait Project is Nov. 1, 2023, as noted on IUOMA.
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| portraits turned into rubber stamps by Adam R. |
Now what else do we have in the inbox? Let's take a look. The Autumn 2023 edition of
Cascadia Coffee Clutch from
Cascadia Artpost has arrived. It's nice to see an ad for Mail Art News on the front page. A big thank you to Jack L. for that! You may remember reading about Cascadia Artpost in
Mail Art News #45. If you haven't read it yet, it's worth a look!
With solid readership numbers (and growing), sending mail art to Mail Art News is a smart move if you're on the path to mail art grandmastery and mail art fame. You can find me on IUOMA by searching for Mail Art News.
Below, you'll see a piece of outgoing mail for Nachladen's Cucumber Art show. In November there will be the 6th group exhibition Cucumber Art at Nachladen.
"This joyful group exhibition presents paintings, drawings, prints, small sculpture, comics, booklets by artists at home and abroad on the theme of cucumber and is a beloved Nachladen tradition.
Nachladen.
Tim Reuscher
Sternstrasse 17
20357 Hamburg
Germany
We would love you to contribute. Please send your art to Nachladen by October 14th 2023, or just drop off your contribution."
No documentation, though, as it's not strictly a mail art exhibition.
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| Mr. Pickle by T. Brown, 2023 |
I'm looking through my art archives to find things to print and mail out. I've found several chess images that I will be sending out. I'm also trying to locate a digital collage I made at some point in the past that showed a chutes and ladders board game superimposed on top of an image of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I was kind of proud of that one. My archives is vast and mostly unorganized though. Perhaps saving images with randomly typed letters and numbers isn't the best idea. I'll find it. I know it's somewhere!
Next week, I will include some photos from the following two books. A neglected topic in the field of mail art is the study of the mail boxes themselves.
I wanted to revisit this collage that arrived in August from DeeDee Maguire (mail artist since 1997). Why? Because it's a great collage. And from time to time I like to sit down and write a few lines about the possible meanings of collages. The figure in the lower left corner is scowling. Prohibition was a major national event in the US. The weight of the topic is conveyed by a giant planet, Saturn. The time scale is included by the image of the earth revolving around the sun. The vinyl-record-looking object with the comets and asteroids suggests the vastness of space. The eye represents anatomy and the biological aspects of what happened.
In 2010 around the time of my Saturn return, due to the soul-sucking effects of alcoholism, I introduced a ban on alcohol for myself. This was one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult thing, I've had to do in life. It was existential crisis mode, but it got easier, despite the never ending pressure from society to drink in order to socialize. Anyway, there's help out there if you need it. It's not easy at all, but it's easier than waking up hungover every morning. Not preaching here, unless you need to be preached to.
With that out of the way, I will now share three pieces of mail from the archives, in honor of the three stars in Orion's belt.
Thanks for reading and may you find some good opportunities within your mind and in the world outside.
This one was a great read! Have you considered compiling a book? I would buy it.
ReplyDeleteYes but...I don't know how copyright would work in such a book. Would I have to ask every single person whose photo I've used for permission? Probably.
DeleteAnd would they want a cut of the book sales? Maybe.
But I'm doing this blog for fun and to document the mail/post/postal/correspondence arts I see around me. It's possible I could just offer it on one of those custom printing sites at cost.
Thanx for info Art!
ReplyDelete