How Mail-Art changed the World

[flo abgrund]

UPDATE:

Many people sent in their works and I greatly enjoyed finding them in my P.O. Box ("Contart living in your mailbox")! So much so that I have decided to extend the final deadline until July 15th!

Dear all Mail-Artists,

as a Germany-based cultural anthropologist, I am interested in how Mail-Art emerged, how it reacted to upheavals in the past, and how it deals with current social change movements. I work with postcards and their role in times of social and political upheavals. Therefore, I wanted to engage with Mail-Art as both an art form and a way of commenting on current events. For me, mail-art became one of the most exciting democratizing art forms around the globe.

So, this should be somewhat of an open call to send me your postcards that thematize your experiences with mail-art and social change – be it in the past or today – until July 15th.

I will be trying to set up a on-site mail-art show with the entries or a zine, but at least there will be an online showcasing of it. Furthermore, I'd love to use your pieces for my further research on the topic and if you are eager to speak to me personally about your experiences I am happy to set up a meeting. Also feel free to reach out with any questions you might have.

Please send your pieces to

Florian Grundmueller

P.O. Box 191338

14003 Berlin

GERMANY

Best,

Flo

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Es ist ausgezeichnet! Ich bemühe mich.

[Jennifer]

Hi Flo, I will be sending you some mail art for your project this coming week. I find your research subject very interesting and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about myself as I’ve started with mail art recently. Cheers! 

[flo abgrund]

Thank you very much for all your contributions! I will send out personal notice to all artists in the next days.

Also, I decided to extend the deadline for another month.

If you are still interested: keep on sending your work!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Binjour! I run the Boring Postcards (BPC) Group here on IUOMA (look at it for further details -- and even join it, and even contribute to it?), and have had 2 exhibitions in France on this theme -- a 3rd is planned for later this year.  The BPC, and my interest in them, continue the pioneering work of the British photographer Martin Parr, who published 3 books (on BPCs in the UK, USA and East Germany) at the end of the last century.

I self-published (with Amazon) a book on BPC: "Wish you were here --Not! A Collection of Boring Postcards."

The extract from the introduction below might interest you. The book is divided ito 20 or so chapters, each with a theme and a comment -- including people at work; industry; camping; monuments; roads, rocks'n'holes, music and art, etc. In an indirect way, they offer a comment on social and political themes over the last 100 years.

Meanwhile, I have well over a 1000 PCs that I consider Boring. 

Can any of this help you in your research?

Regards,  Val Herman

******

BORING POSTCARDS

“Who still sends postcards these days?”

Alas, not many people. Traditional postcards have a long history, but nowadays they have been surpassed by photos posted and sent on social media. Photos are much easier to send by phone or computer than having to buy a postcard, write on the back of it, buy a stamp and mail it off.

At the end of the last century, the British writer and photographer Martin Parr published 3 short books of photos of ‘Boring Postcards’. I am continuing where he left off.

What makes a postcard ‘Boring’? This is very subjective. I might think a postcard is boring: you might find it interesting. Here I let this collection of 350 postcards speak for themselves.

When I come across a Boring Postcard, I ask myself a number of questions:

* first, why did someone want to make a postcard of this particular boring subject?

* second, why did some printer and some seller think they could make money from this Boring Postcard?

* third, why did anyone buy this Boring Postcard? Was it a deliberate choice, or were there no other more interesting postcards available?

* fourth, in choosing and sending this Boring Postcard, what message did the sender mean to convey?

* fifth, what on earth did the recipient of this Boring Postcard make of it?

There are two additional considerations:

* first, a postcard can be Boring because of what is in it -- for example, a row of tents; the interior of a tunnel; a piece of industrial equipment; or an empty football ground.

* second a postcard can be Boring because of what is not in it – for example, a swimming pool with no people in it; a street scene with no activity, no cars, no people, no movement; or a hotel or restaurant without any customers.

Finally, there is an inherent contradiction in being a deltiologist (a collector of postcards) – the more you look at Boring Postcards, the more interesting they become! Look – and decide – for yourself.

[flo abgrund]

Hi Val, thank you so much for your comment under my post. I know, of course, both your group and Martin Parr's work which I both find great. I would be very interested to be allowed a gaze into your collection also because "boring" can be seen as a quite challenged term. Parr's book for example often features big highway junctions which might seem boring from today's perspective but might also be visions of new mobility and progress back in the days. 

I like your contraction and the paradox every much that you put at the end of the description. It really captures, in my opinion, the core essence of postcarding and collecting. I don't know if you would agree. I'd be happy to start an exchange with you if you are interested, too. 

Should we continue via DMs? 

Best, Flo 

[Juan Petry]

hello flo,
nice to see your post here. i remember the good conversation in the "weinerei veteranenstrasse". for sure i will send you some work till 15.07.
please consider to publish your research about it AS WELL IN MAIL ART and maybe you like the idea to do it in an illustrated artist book...

https://www.artsurprise.eu/contemporary-bookkeeping/

all the best.

juan