Change as Network: Mail Art in the 21st Century

[Lars Schumacher]

26.09.2025, the Kunstraum Reuter in Berlin‑Neukölln concluded Change – Veränderung, an international Mail Art exhibition that transformed the space into a temporary laboratory of global artistic communication. For two weeks, the gallery became a site where change was not merely represented but enacted — through circulation, exchange, and the performative act of sending and receiving. The exhibition affirmed Mail Art as one of the most democratic and resilient artistic practices of the present, a medium that continues to evolve while retaining its foundational ethos of openness.

At the center of this project stood Lutz Anders, the Berlin‑based artist, typographer, archivist, and organizer whose decades‑long commitment to Mail Art shaped the exhibition’s conceptual and logistical framework. Anders has long been a pivotal figure in the German and international Mail Art community, known for his meticulous organization, his typographic works, and his ability to cultivate transnational networks. In Change – Veränderung, his curatorial vision foregrounded Mail Art not as a historical artifact but as a living, global system of communication — one capable of addressing political urgency, personal transformation, and collective imagination.

Mail Art’s roots in Fluxus were unmistakable throughout the exhibition. The emphasis on everyday materials, the dissolution of traditional objecthood, and the understanding of communication as artistic gesture echoed the legacies of George Maciunas, Ray Johnson, and the early networkers who defined the medium in the 1960s. Yet the works presented in Berlin demonstrated how Mail Art has expanded far beyond its origins, becoming a transnational field that bridges generations, geographies, and aesthetic strategies.

More than 400 artists from over 40 countries contributed works — collages, visual poetry, typographic experiments, conceptual interventions, and objects that arrived through the postal system as fragments of a global conversation. The diversity of voices was striking: from internationally recognized figures such as Ai Weiwei, Luc Fierens, Ryosuke Cohen, John Held Jr., Ruggero Maggi, and Jürgen O. Olbrich, to emerging and independent practitioners whose contributions underscored the democratic nature of the medium.

The full constellation of participating artists included: Péter Abajkovics, Orlando Nelson Pacheco Acuña, Alexandru Jakabhazi, Christian Alle, Beate Altmann, Helen Amyes, Lutz Anders, Aurora Andrade, The Wasted Angel, David Stanley Aponte, Isabel Arroyo, Tamara Asmolkowa, Mustafa Cevat Atalay, Leslie Atkins, Derya Avci, Bambule, Izabela Banasik, Fabrizio Bandini, Ana Paula Barros, Richard Baudet, Hanna Bayer, Sabela Baña, Kurt Beaulieu, Lutz Beeke, Graciela Bello, John M. Bennet, Eric Bensidon, Ottmar Bergmann, Pedro Bericat, Diane Bertrand, Miroslav Blagojeyic, Manuel Xio Blanco, Gernot Borstel, Marzia Maria Braglia, Michael Georg Bregel, Vizma Bruns, Joachim Buchholz, Alena Bugárová, Bernd Burkhardt, Birgit Bächt, Melanie Bäreis, Mirta Caccaro, Graham Campbell, Angela Caporaso, Guido Capuano, Lamberto Caravita, Christiane Carrè, Joan M. Carter, Nicolas de la Casinière, Ana Pobo Castañer, Maria Teresa Cazzaro, Siren Öral Cerdan, Ingo Cesaro, Devin Cohen, Ryosuke Cohen, Massimo Conti, Nani Corina, Daniel De Culla, John Cumming, Serda Dactar, Dadanautik, Renata Danicek, Maks Dannecker, David Dellafiora, Ferran Destemple, Angelika Dirscherl, Lea Dolinsky, Marianne Dreißigacker, Rosemarie Drews, Sil Dubois, The Sticker Dude, Alexandre Dufrasne, Jacki Dunmow, Emelyne Duval, Mike Dyar, Edyta Dzierz, Marlies Döking, Ariel Esguivel, Wolfgang Faller, Cinzia Farina, Fakhrey Fasyin, Domenico Ferrara‑Foria, Luc Fierens, Monika Fischer, Sandor Focht, Roberto Formigoni, Bernd Friedrich, Thorsten Fuhrmann, Marco Furia, Francisco Galvez, Pedro Gonzalves Garcia, Martha Garcia‑Höhn, Antonio Moreno Garrido, Claudio Gavina, John Gayer, Gisela Gebauer, Jeanette Geissler, Charlotte Geister, Ed Giecek, Susan Gold, Roman Golub, Gomez, Lola Gonzàlez, Ulrich Gorsboth, Isolde Gorsboth, Tenue Gouleau, Henry Grahn Hermunen, Lucile Greco, Karin Greenwood, Jürgen Griessbach, Anita Grobelak, Elke Grundmann, Sabine Götzner, Wolfgang Günther, HEL, Karl‑Friedrich Hacker, Jim Harmer, Celia Harmer, Gareth Harmer, Jim Hayes, Marcel Heisig, John Held Jr., Juliana Hellmundt, Ingeborg Henrichs, Vicki Henry, H. Heo, Stefan Heuer, Didi Hirt, Risto Holopainen, Honki, Uwe Höfig, Suzlee Ibrahim, Barbara Ihme, Biro Ildiko, Sugar Irmer, Rolf Jahn, Eduard Jakabhazi, Eberhard Janke, Gerald Jatzek, Gerald Jauss, Miguel Jimenez, Juraj Jonke, Nazerde Jücel, Kalle, Wolfram Kastner, Gloria Keh, Boris Kerenski, Dorota Kilichowska, Maxima Maria Kinsky, Johannes Klauke, Eckhard Koenig, Monika Kopiak, Serofine Christine Kratzke, Siegfried J. Krause, Mary Kritz, Diana Kroshilova, Ilmar Kruusamäe, Hans Jurgen Kuster, Toan Vinh La, Magda Lagerwerf, Alberto Lamas, Virgilio Torill E. Larsen, William Lee, Johann Leschinkohl, Michael Ley, Siggi Liersch, Karla Lipp, Loreto Puente Lopez, Virginie Loreau, Constança Lucas, Reiner Lämmle, Karin Lämmle, Ruggero Maggi, Mailarta, Nicolas Malevitsis, Katerina Mandarik, Tohei Mano, Antonio De Marchi‑Gherini, Anja Mattila‑Tolvanen, Deborah McMenamy, William Mellot, Manuela Merl, Anna Meszaros, Monika Milczewski, Virginia Milia, Susanne Mittenwieser, Stephan Mittenwieser, Nikolaus Mohr, Calia Montemezzani, Mattia Montemezzani, Verdiana Morandi, Gunn Morstol, António Mounsinho, Sibylle Möndel, Peter Müller, Akif Nabihan, Keiichi Nakamura, Martina Nemecek, Seth Nicemail, Katerina Nikoltsou, Irina Novikova, Katsura Okada, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Asma Ounine, Veronique Pozzi Paine, Emilio Cristiano Pallara, Juan Fran Núñez Parreño, Walter Pennacchi, Ovidiu Petca, Marcel Peters, Riccardo Pezzoli, Sharon Pfau, Maria Piatek, Maria Grazia Piazza, Bruno Pierozzi, Christian Pietzke, Horváth Piroska, Reinhard Ploetz, Poul Poclage, Hugo Pontes, Jill Pritchard, Maria E. Quiroga, RCBz, Diego Racconi, A. Radke, Maria Victoria Bone Ramirez, Cor Reijn, Penard Remy, Sabine Remy, Monica Rex, Petra Rosenberg, Marcia Rosenberger, Néstor Rossi, Wolfgang Rostek, Adam Roussopoulos, Heike Sackmann, Marina Vedova Salmaso, Riza Sanalan, Manuel Cavarro Sanchez, Carmela Sarcina, Roberto Scala, Wim Scheere, Wilhelm Schramm, Peter Schubert, Friedrich Schumacher, Lars Schumacher, Susanne Schumacher, Martin Schwarz, Sigrid Schöppe, Jörg Seifert, Spunk Seipel, Beate Senf‑Hentsch, Noah Serafino, Cesare Serafino, Manuel Sainz Serrano, Sharon Hall Shipp, Isabella Sicco, Dylan Simon, Snappy, Zoe Snyder, Michael Derrick Spence, Nasta Spencer, Hans‑Jürgen Steiner, Carol Stetser, Lilijana Stevanovic, Giovanni Strada, Renata Stradada, Andreas Streicher, Janice Sturley, Judith Sturm, Jiri Subrt, Rod Summers, Diana Suárez, Erich Sündermann, Mukata Takamura, Ulrich Tarlatt, Paolo Teles, Giorgio Termignone, Jan Theuninck, Thomas, Stephen Tomasko, Horst Tress, Lubomyr Tymkiv, Marie Vailhe, Non Local Variable, Edita Varinska, Michel Della Vedova, Rosa Ana Velasco‑Lino, Viva Vercruysse, Rosanna Veronesi, Birgitta Volz, Antonina Vracinska, Jürgen Völkert‑Marten, Simon Warren, Hazel Wayman, Jennifer Weigel, Ai Weiwei, Thomas Westermann, Rainer Wieczorek, Lutz Wohlrab, Karen Wood, Maria Wosik, Bernhard Zilling, Mindaugas Zuromskas, Susanne Zühlke, rOn cOn cOma, Ko de Jonge, etcetera23, guroga, Eni llis, and Henk J. van Ooyen.

The exhibition’s strength lay in its multiplicity. Introspective works appeared alongside urgent political messages; poetic fragments coexisted with conceptual provocations. Some contributions felt like quiet notes from within personal transformation, others like dispatches from a world at a tipping point. The Mail Art format made these dynamics visible: change was not only depicted but enacted through the act of sending, receiving, and responding.

The finissage on 8 October 2025 did not mark an ending but a transition — a moment in which visitors carried the exhibition’s messages into new conversations, new exchanges, new postal routes. This continuity is the essence of Mail Art: it does not conclude within the gallery but persists in the hands, minds, and networks of its participants.

Change – Veränderung demonstrated that Mail Art is not a relic of the avant‑garde but a vital, global system of artistic communication. Through the vision of Lutz Anders, the Kunstraum Reuter affirmed itself as a crucial node in this network — a place where art remains open, international, experimental, and profoundly fluxus‑aligned.