new mail art from france - thanks to dr zack

[Juan Petry]

[Juan Petry]

I know nothing about the origin of the material used for this collage. Nor do I know anything about the artist's intention. But I've noticed recently that artists are increasingly enclosing material for collages in their mail in the expectation that the recipients will use it for their own projects. This has several effects. And these can be discussed on several levels (through the lens of art history). I'll just pick out one aspect here: when many artists distribute a lot of material among themselves, works emerge that are linked to other works in terms of the material. In this way, the boundaries of the concept of a work of art are broken down. The amount of material will then also allow us to recognize trends, identify preferences of a time and reflect on why this or that composition is found more often than another. But for me, another aspect is particularly interesting. If I expand the concept of a work of art to this "family of works with parts of the same material sources", then the boundaries of the object become blurred, even though it can be clearly identified. then you can neither buy it in its entirety, nor own it or present it. It is in parts beyond exploitation.
On the other hand, if there were a "Picasso" among the material providers and he was accepted as such by the general public, all of these works would be assigned values ​​that made them tradable due to their quantity, like cigarettes, eggs, flints, seeds - a fascinating idea in the era of the deconstruction of classical money exchange systems.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

This is a real beauty from Zack !