Ilya Semenenko-Basin's Blog (435)

Dutch mail-art artist Carien van Hest sent me her new piece in an envelope with a cheerful, carefree frog. Thanks, Carien!

At the turn of summer and autumn, envelopes arrived in the mail from three mail-artists, Carien van Hest (Zutphen, The Netherlands), Katerina Nikoltsou from Greece and Zack from France.

I am very grateful.

Within Mail Art, documents about events can circulate. For example, the German mail-art artist Lars Schumacher, who lives in Burgdorf near Hanover, sent me two postcards - they are notices of a Mail Art exhibition in Berlin last August. Lars was one of the organizers. On the back of the postcards is a poster of the exhibition, with the names of the participants, and on the front (see photo) are the autographs and stamps of the participants etc.…

Mail art from the UK. Kevin Gillen and his son James Gillen, an English artist based in Hawking, Kent, have sent me an invitation to participate in a self-portrait and memories exhibition. Kevin Gillen is an ancestor of mail-art in England.

So, it's about collage and Mail Art.

Recently I received a sheet of ADDandPASS, started by the American artist and musician David Stanley Aponte. After the USA, this sheet went to Finland and then was delivered by mail to Moscow. I went too far and filled the sheet 90% full, so that the contribution of the previous authors is barely…

So, I have broken the rules of the IUOMA and am writing on a completely different topic. I just have a new book out and wanted to tell you about it.

I have published a study about a doctor and philanthropist who worked in a Moscow prison in the first half of the 19th century. He was German, his name was Friedrich Joseph Haass…

I received mail art from Sabrina Schmider.…

Mail Art from Russia to Russia. Thanks to Vlada Laptev for the collage postcard.

I manage to connect to the Internet and the mail continues to work, so I'll share the reproductions of art I received from Luís Filipe Gomes from Portugal. In the envelope I found four sheets; the first three were colour reproductions of Luís's works with the pencil autographs. The fourth sheet is a pencil work. Everything is so eloquent that it hardly needs…

Dear friends, are there any Duke Ellington fans amongst you? Would anyone like to receive a collage card from me dedicated to the music of Ellington?

This spring, the mail-art stream has become very shallow, but it has not dried up. Mail from some European countries still reaches Moscow, and there is also correspondence within Russia. Recently I received artifacts from Vlada Lapteva from Yekaterinburg, from two artists from the UK: Mail_Art_Martha and Kevin Gillen from the UK, from Lutz Anders from Germany, Luís Filipe Gomes from Portugal and Silvia Dubois from Belgium. The exhibition catalogue from Spain has arrived. At the same time the…

It's about Mail Art again. This time it's about using someone else's work in a return message. Some Mail Art artists allow themselves to take the work they receive in the mail, cover it with paint, glue something on, and return it to the author in this form. There is another way of working together, a pure exchange of gestures, a subtle dance of meanings. Akiko Shinmura, a Japanese Mail Art artist who lives in Aioi, Hyogo prefecture, gives an example.

Last year, I sent Akiko a…

Since 2014, Rome has hosted the annual EcoFuturo festival dedicated to eco-technology. At the same time, EcoFuturo is an Italian network of companies, professionals and researchers working on new technological solutions to energy and environmental problems.

On the occasion of the edition of EcoFuturo in May this year, a special…

In the summer we reminisce about the past winter.…

According to philosophers, one does not simply perceive works of art, we always open up the possibility of a kind of co-creation and leave room for the viewer. Our viewer "recreates" the artwork in a certain way at the moment of perception.

Consequently, we always open up the possibility of a kind of co-creation and leave room for the viewer.

As the Borderline Grafix aptly put it in the comments, "The spectator completes the creation”.

Thanks to Ana Kawajiri who sent me an envelope decorated with collage from Brazil. Inside I found an exquisitely crafted A4 sheet and the artist's postage stamps. I photographed the whole A4 sheet and also took pictures of fragments of it. You can also see a photo of Ana's stamps, varying the famous Marcel Duchamp theme. I really like this art.…

A magnificent collage by Ana Kawajiri received in the mail.

The internet is working, I can go to the IUOMA website. I remember when Mail Art from Josh Ronsen of Austin TX came to me last winter. Thanks Josh!!!…

I am writing this post on days when the media brings bad information. Nevertheless, we are not silent. In the winter I received a Mail Art from Jeff Bagato (Texas, USA). Thank you Jeff!!!…

I received this piece in the winter mail from Anja Mattila-Tolvanen in Finland. Thank you!!!