Sammlung Schumacher I Mail Art Across Continents

[Lars Schumacher]

Kunstraum MITTE37 inaugurates its first dedicated space for international Mail Art with the exhibition

Sammlung Schumacher I Mail Art Across Continents. Dialogue of Postal Art.

Burgdorf‑based artist Susanne Schumacher presents a personal selection from her decades‑long artistic correspondence — a living archive that spans continents and reveals the aesthetic range, radical gestures, and poetic freedom that define Mail Art.

The works on view illuminate not only the visual diversity of this practice, but also the social vitality of an art form rooted in the New York Correspondence School of Ray Johnson and the Fluxus movements of the 1960s. Over time, Mail Art has evolved into a global, open, and continuously expanding network — sustained by friendships, serendipity, and the joy of immediacy. Through letters, envelopes, and postcards, art becomes an open dialogue, unconstrained by borders, institutions, or markets.

At the center of the exhibition are the BrainCell works of Japanese artist Ryosuke Cohen, created since the 1980s in collaboration with Noriko Shimizu. Nearly every week, Cohen sends more than fifty of these A3‑sized collaborative prints across the world. Each sheet forms a global mosaic — a dense field of stamps, drawings, and traces contributed by hundreds of artists who have participated in the project over decades.

The exhibition also features works by Canadian‑American Mail Art icon Anna Banana, whose humorous, performative, and often subversive visual language has shaped the international network since the 1970s.

A further focus highlights the work of U.S. artist Picasso Gaglione, editor of the legendary Stampzine. His stamp‑based compositions merge Pop aesthetics, Fluxus gestures, and an inexhaustible delight in experimentation — echoing the artistic freedom that has accompanied Mail Art from its beginnings.

“I open my Mail Art archive — a web of encounters, letters, cards, collages, and postal artworks grown over many years. This archive is not a neatly ordered cabinet, but a living organism: a network of handwriting, spontaneous ideas, and artistic impulses unfolding in the rhythm of the postal system. For me, Correspondence Art is not only an artistic practice but a form of dialogue. Each mailing is a small universe, a moment of trust, a sign that art also emerges in the in‑between — between sender and recipient, between paper and world.”

Susanne Schumacher

With this exhibition, MITTE37 opens a new resonant space for the global Mail Art community. The works speak of relationships, artistic networks, and the force of a practice that unfolds beyond institutional boundaries — direct, personal, and always in exchange. Mail Art is relational art. It emerges in the in‑between. This exhibition makes that space visible.

Opening: 6 August 2026, 7–9 PM
Exhibition: 7–30 August 2026
Venue: Kunstraum MITTE37, Mittelstraße 37, 31303 Burgdorf, Germany

Participating artists: Alfonso Caccavale, Bindu PV, Alexander Limarev, Domenico Severino, Angela Netmail, Anja Mattila‑Tolvanen, Anna Banana, Anna Boschi, Artheka 32, Asma Ounine, Bruno Chiarlone, C Mehrl Bennett, Cannelle Tanc, Carmen Heemels, Clemente Padin, Cotellessa Giuliano, Dame Mailarta, Darling Darlene, David Dellafiora, Dórian Ribas Marinho, Eberhard Janke, Ed Hanssen, Enzo Correnti, Frederic Vincent, Friedrich Schumacher, Fulgor C. Silvi, _guroga, Giovanni Donaudi, Giovanni Stradada, Hans Braumüller, Hans Heß, Hikmet Sahin, Horst Tress, Jack Seiei, James Gillen, Johann Leschinkohl, José Luis Alcalde Soberanes, Juri Gik, Keiichi Nakamura, Kevin Geronimo Brandtner, Kulturzentrum Büz Minden, Lancillotto Bellini, Lara Favaro, Lars Schumacher, Lutz Anders, Lutz Wohlrab, Magda Lagerwerf, Maks Dannecker, Meral Agar, Michelle Gendreau, Mikel Untzilla, Monsenhor enVide neFelibata, Mustafa Cevat Atalay, Nicola Winborn, Noriko Shimizu, Peter Küstermann, Picasso Gaglione, Pier Roberto Bassi, Rainer Wieczorek, Reiner Langer, Renata Stradada, RF Côté, Rittiner & Gomez, Roberto Scala, Ruggero Maggi, Ruth Wolf‑Rehfeldt, Ryosuke Cohen, Sabela Baña, Sait Toprak, Sandro Bongiani, Sergio Guerrini, Serse Luigetti, Sharon Silverman, Stefan Balog, Susan Gold, Susanne Schumacher, Tiziana Baracchi, Tohei Mano, Vittore Baroni