There is a strong connection between mail art and cassette culture. In fact, some say cassette culture was a direct outgrowth of this postal movement. I certainly knew several home tapers who were also mail artists. My own brother Chris told me once of mailing a rock to his pal Dave. Just a rock with some stamps on it. Musician James Hill put one of his tapes in an old doll’s arm and mailed it off somewhere. Minoy was involved in mail art even before music I believe. I was involved in a mail art project curated by “Nick” ( Dennis J. Baldwin, also a musician) called “Dead Things” in about 1987. I will reproduce a few images of that here and also another mail art book (“Things To Think About In Space”) edited by Mario Lara in 1980.
In some cases there are concepts or themes for particular mail art projects. Other times it is just random work with occasional guidelines for size. Post cards have been a signature way of producing this work that is mailed between artists, sometimes added to and then mailed again.
If you are new to mail art you may want to read this short history, it’s fascinating.
And, of course, you can find more information at the wikipedia page.
A card indicating which copy of the mail art project ( Level 10) I got.
Above, this piece is by David Greenberger who is also a writer, musician and editor of the journals known as The Duplex Planet.
Above, A weird piece laminate of different materials created by Clifford Mee.
Angelo Vitale painted on cardboard for the effect above.
Some cards designed by “Nick” for this edition of Level.
A post card sized work by Franco Cenci.
Words and graphics go together to make this offering by Pat Fish.
“Tape Sample” by Trevor actually had a piece of open reel recording tape attached but it has long since fallen off.
Vittore Baroni, also known as “Mr. Bizarro” was a well known Italian postal artist. In fact, here is some interesting info to follow up on.
Too small to probably be readable is a piece by sound collage artist, Malok from Wisconsin. Malok used cut outs from newspapers and printed matter for many of his cassette covers.
Experimental musician, James Levine ( also known as Croiners) was also a mail artist. His work was an announcement of this 1984 radio broadcast.
A work by Achim Schnyder.