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"...I think the New York Correspondence School was truly
communicative simply because I was able to wheel the
ping-pong paddle and to keep the ball on the move..."
- Ray Johnson.

When somebody comes to a mail art exhibition, the surprise is caused by being in front of very numerous art works, of whatever technique and size, arrived from all over the world, and everytime he does not miss to blurt out the same sentence: "But I thought mail art was only cards!". This is really the big confusion existing around this expressive form also because it has been completely joining the official art system, having internal rules as "no jury, no selection, no criticism, no money", although it has been present since the far 60's, but nowadays Universities, Institutions, Museums are actively interested in its phenomenon, either from the social-political point of view and from the historical one, while they foresee to officialize it. On the contrary, it is a real art network, characterizing the 20th century, out of the traditional art patches, but it is not completely underground because the public room, the private and common one, has always accepted to exhibit mail art works related to projects about a topic, often arranged by themselves or also proposed by artist/mail-artist, who has then looked after the exhibition.

Mail art consists of two words: mail and art, that is not cards but mail art. This is its main feature: to mail, to reach another artist in another country by mail, to be able to display, above all the artists in countries which are less lucky than ours wherever in the globe, at the only cost of only one envelope and some stamps - to receive then the exhibition documentation and - central and important point of mail art poetics - to have interlaced relationships with artists all over the world united in choral display, full of meanings and deep values, as the taking part, the sharing, the overcoming of social-political-ideological barriers. Thus the sizes have no limits but the 'mailable' one and the works can be of whatever size, expression, technique at artist's choice. They are cards, of the artists like to express by that dimension and they can be artist's stamps, artist's books, copy-art, photographies if the artist/mailartist is used to work in that context. In the network many projects circulate related to ARTISTAMPS and ART-BOOKS, real jewels of criticism, language and imagination. Not always the artists comply with the project by a topic interpretation, they often mail a personal work, awareto be anyway part of this involving universal embrace. Also this is in the spirit of mail art. This extraordinary circuit owes its life to the American artist Ray Johnson when, inspired by the FLUXUS movement (1958), he thought of giving mail art an autonomous address out of every market link (obviously, this summary doesn't even go into its roots that trace back to futurism, dadaism, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia etc.). It was 1962. After sending his pieces all over the world (in particular the "Moticos" and the "Add and return to.." ) Ray Johnson founded - in parody of the New York School of Abstract Expressionist Correspondence existing in that time and seen by Ray with ironic eye - the New York CorresponDance School of Art and here he began to collect the works of people with whom he was in contact by mail. Simbolically, these works represented the students. As a result, envelopes, postmarks, stamps, labels etc. became an integral element in this type of communication. And communication is the principal point of the mail art' poetic. There was immediate response to this fantastic and original initiative, and not after long an artistic network was formed. Each artist tried to develop an individual language through this new channel. Mail Art was coming into being. In short time he collected the widest adhesions also of artists like Rauschenberg, Yves Klein, Ben Vautier, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, June Nam Paik, Daniel Spoerri and in about more than forty years it has become a real international network consisting of multimedia artists of every nation of the world and going around the planet by requesting participation to social, political, game and topical projects. Of course the technological evolution has strongly developed also the mail art in the last time because the communication has become easier. In Internet in fact many files have arisen, from which it is possible to get information, to know the circulating projects, the meetings, the symposiums, the Festivals organized all over the world, where besides the exhibitions and installations, discussions, performances and poetical actions take place. This all has been a further important spur to adhere to this collective international circuit and the evidence is the increase of interest in this artistic expression also from the various Institutions. Of course also the mail art, in the experimental season of visual art through electronical media, has got a natural transformation in e-mail art, with projects on this specific topic, because, dealing with "communicated art", it should not necessarily be a manufacture to be mailed, but it can be transmitted by whatever mean of communication: computer, fax, CD, CD-R, DVD, etc. I realized anyway that, after an experimental period of mailing by e-mail art, many artists - working according to the real spirit of mail art - have not given up the pleasure to make an original work and the evocative charm of manufacture and the attending by mail has again fully restarted.

And the mail art, in this historical period where people speak always about "global village", represents the oasis in the incommunicability's desert and the concrete overcoming of the social, ideological, political and religious differences, being bearer of worth as participation, fraternity and equality.

 Copyright © by Anna Boschi - cermasi@libero.it