Difference between revisions of "User:Mujinga/article creation"
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| − | Although one must spend money to send the item, mail art is never sold | + | Although one must spend money to send the item, mail art is never sold and normally swopped. There is a network of traders and the way to enter it is simply to make something and send it out to people, who then tend to send something they have created back. Sometimes artists make a mail art call - this is when they request to be sent mail art on a certain theme. An example of this was the [[Visions of Utopia]] project, which also featured an accompanying zine as documentation. |
==Zinesters who make mail art== | ==Zinesters who make mail art== | ||
Revision as of 16:59, 26 July 2007
mail art
ideas
- simple definition
- use what is mailart from utopia zine
- a few good links
Mail art is something which a person makes, considering it art, and then sends to someone else through the postal service. It can also refer to the process itself. The sent object can in theory be of any size or dimensions, but most mail art is sent in envelopes (often themselves decorated) or as a postcard (10cm by 15 cm). People also make ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) which are homemade versions of the football club or Cabbage Patch Kids cards swopped by children. Zines can be considered a form of mail art when traded by post.
Techniques
Mail artists work with many techniques which can include pencil drawing, charcoal, collage, oil paints, computer imagery or watercolours. Found art is often employed as a base material. There are also subgenres of mail art such as rubber stamp makers who collect stamps from various sources and even make their own, or artistamp makers, who make fake stamps (which have been known to be sent through the post on letters performing the function of real stamps).
Send and retun, send and pass on.
Ryosuke Cohen
History
Mail art has certainly been going as long as people have been sending each other mail, but in the 1960s it became a recognised phenomenon. The prolific Ray Johnson with his New York Correspondence School is regarded by some as the father of mail art. Avant garde groups such as Fluxus in the 1960s and the closely connected network of artists involved in the 1970s industrial movement (such as Genesis P-Orridge from Throbbing Gristle and COUM Transmissions) frequently made mail art.
Despite fears that the internet and increased electronic communications would lead to the death of mail art, there are still many mail artists making and swopping objects through the post. In fact, the internet can be a useful tool to find out about new projects to swop with (see addresses at bottom of page).
Free
Although one must spend money to send the item, mail art is never sold and normally swopped. There is a network of traders and the way to enter it is simply to make something and send it out to people, who then tend to send something they have created back. Sometimes artists make a mail art call - this is when they request to be sent mail art on a certain theme. An example of this was the Visions of Utopia project, which also featured an accompanying zine as documentation.
