Mail art

Mail art involves pieces of art constructed or compiled by artists who utilize the postal service to assist in their collaboration.

The artform was popular with surrealists and fluxus artists. In this art form postcards are exchanged, artistamps are made, decorated envelopes and objects are exchanged, but most important is that the message is the medium. Mail art can be counted to the conceptual art.

The International Union of Mail Artists (see external link) is a group of mail artists that anyone can join just by saying so. Yet, mail art is free and most mail artists prefer not to be a member of any group. Mail art has no membership and no leader.

The 1980s anarcho-punk duo APF Brigade individually recorded each copy of their first mail-order only cassette release Live Brigade. Each was therefore an unique artifact, and thus could arguably be considered to have been a part of the mail art movement.

Some well-known Mail-Artists are:

• Ray Johnson
• Guy Bleus[?]
• Crackerjack Kid[?]
• John Held Jr.[?]
• Honoria
• Ruud Janssen
• Henning Mittendorf[?]
• Shozo Shimamoto
• Ryosuke Cohen[?]
• Dobrica Kamperelic[?]
• Pamdelion
• Anna Banana
• Geert de Decker[?]
• ex posto facto[?]
• buZ blurr[?]
• Linda Hedges[?]
• Litsa Spathi
• Robin Crozier[?]
• Keith Bates[?]
• Michael Leigh[?]
• Ko de Jonge[?]

Noted mail art collectors include: Christa Behmenburg

External links

• Interested in Mail-Art? (http://www.iuoma.org)
• Mail-art.de (http://www.mail-art.de)
• Discussion-group of the IUOMA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iuoma/)