Mail Art
メール・アート／郵便芸術 / 1960s–present / Style / Avant-garde
A network art practice that treats envelopes, postcards, stamps, rubber stamps, addresses, postmarks, and delivery time as compositional parts. The work is a system for reply, forwarding, addition, and arrival rather than one finished sheet.
Envelopes, postcards, address fields, and postal frames structuring the page / Artistamps, rubber stamps, typing, and photocopy layered together / Folds, abrasion, postmarks, and dates from transit retained / Instructions or space for a recipient to reply, alter, or forward
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Growing a work through exchange among people who cannot share one venue · Making invitations, editions, and records one sequence including the marks of delivery
- Type
- Separate address, date, and instruction with typing, handwriting, and stamps while following postal reading order.
- Composition
- Keep delivery information on one face and artwork plus reply area on the other, composing around folds and stamp position.
- Material
- Use postcards, thin paper, envelopes, photocopy, rubber stamps, and artistamps without erasing transit wear.
- Caution
- Do not publish private addresses, signatures, or postmarks without consent. Avoid designs mistaken for valid postage and materials that obstruct postal handling.
- Further study
- Ray Johnson and the New York Correspondance School / Fluxus postal networks / artistamps, rubber stamps and collaborative correspondence
Related entries
- Fluxus (フルクサス)Same Avant-garde lineage.Compare Mail Art and Fluxus
- Concrete Poetry (具体詩／コンクリート・ポエトリー)Shared effects: Rebellion / Play.Compare Mail Art and Concrete Poetry
More from Avant-garde
Continue through styles in the same Avant-garde family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Post-Modernism (ポスト・モダニズム)Shared effects: Play / Rebellion.
- Dada (ダダ)Shared effects: Rebellion / Play.
- Expressionism (表現主義)Shared effects: Rebellion / Intimacy.
Browse all Avant-garde entries
Cite this entry
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- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/mail-art
- Markdown
- [Mail Art — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/mail-art)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/mail-art">Mail Art — IndexStyle</a>