Rare Card by DSF (Dopesick San Francisco) (Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail art by IUOMA member DSF (Dopesick San Francisco) aka Michael Kelly (Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA)

 

June 16, 2018 - DSF is a widely known artist/persona in the Eternal Network and beyond. I am thrilled to share a new piece I consider “rare” in the sense that it falls outside the parameters of classic DSF images.

DSF’s mail art – usually using the postcard format – is widely recognizable. Some of the images I might even dare call iconic. DSF draws from the darker side of popular culture and thus can lay claim to being a contemporary practitioner of the mail art popart aesthetic that can be traced back to Ray Johnson.

And even more defining, DSF works in the postavant Punk aesthetic, riff with musical references that expand the Johnson/Warhol canon considerably. Anyone familiar with mail art and zines from the 70s and 80s are aware of the profound impact of Punk in mail art history.

DSF is – in my estimation – one of the best contemporary practitioners of the underground Punk aesthetic. But he is not simply someone from that era who survived. In fact, I suspect DSF was not even active in the network during that Golden Age. Rather, he brings new life and resonance to an artistic strand that – I believe- has not yet been fully appreciated.

Here is some old DSF material to give you a context:

 Mail art by DSF (Dopesick San Francisco) aka Michael Kelly (Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA)

 

 

And here is the reverse side of the “Suffer” card:

 

 

Thanks as ever to DSF!