Mailart works 1989 - 2005 - © Lloyd Godman

Mail Art - Lloyd Godman
For me, more important than when or how mail arts began, is what it has grown into,  how it continues to evolve and the diversity of people involved in the activity. 

Simply mail art is postal art, art works that are sent via the postal service as a communication from one person or set of individuals to another, but more recently it has also included new initiatives of Fax art, e-mail art, internet art etc. 

There are various ideas and arguments about when and how it began. Before the first world war, the Futurists  printed post cards, envelopes and writing paper in a style that mimicked commercial companies as a means of advertising their identity. While  aspects of this activity was clearly the subversion of both art and society it did not require networking and took place within a closed  elite group. Surely it could be argued  that the defacing of the Mona Lisa post card by Duchamp and other activities by the Dadaists embraced  elements of mail art, but they also continued to exhibit in the established art system they pro ported to attack.

Mail Art is both the creation of a product and  social act- the sending  (exchanging) of that product. Michael Lumb

It is generally accepted that the activity of Mail Art began in an  era around the  1960s when there was a fresh turbulence in the art world. By the end of the 1950s in New York a new emphasis had emerged in art, an emphasis away from seriousness, away from the intense angst of the Abstract Expressionists, away from a text based society towards a playfulness that embraced an age of the of the media  image. Magazines like Life and Look and the popularity of television helped created a changing landscape,  an environment where images became more accessible,  less precious. 

As part of this New York experience, Robert Motherwell helped plant the seeds of mutation with his book The Dada Painters and Poets (1951). The book contained a number of collages that in retrospect seem relevant to Ray Johnson's early Mail Art work; work that explored jokes, puns, the apparent random placement of image and text, and the repeated use of popular image.

Until the end of the 1940s, Black Mountain Collage was one of the most socially and educationally experimental schools in the USA. Rather than artistic concerns, debate centred on issues; issues which eventually led to factions, fears and fighting  among students and staff around 1945. Issues of community living,  liberal attitudes,  an inclusive education  of self learning were promoted above  the narrowing experience of a fine Arts dedicated course. No difference was placed on the circular and the so called non-cirricular  activities that took place at the school. This lively cultural environment together with the ideals of a democracy in art, that were promoted by the founder of Black Mountain Collage John Rice, is where  Ray Johnson studied.

Ray Johnson attended Black Mountain Collage  1945 to 1949 and how much influence it had on him can only be guessed at. As a student he had incorporated his retrieved letters in collages, however these works are more in line with Curt Schwitters and seem unrelated to his mail art endeavours. 

When questioned at a later time about whether he felt Mail Art was an art from, Johnson replied with a typically  Cagian manner,  "The contents is the contents: the stamp is the stamp; the address is the address. It is very clear  your question "Is this an art form" is the art form" The answer is a a non-answer. He also actively discouraged the fame his contemporaries like Warhol even turning down solo exhibitions from prominent galleries.

In 1955 it is said he observed that his paintings were three times the size of an envelope and he was moved to cut them up and mail them to friends.  He made hundreds of collages often  by  over laying them with cannibalized pieces from earlier works. He developed lists of people he would mail work to. What constitutes Ray Johnson as the person who began mail art is his use of correspondence as an artist to use a net work which he created to distribute and communicate about his work and in return their work. 
 

and it became a means of by passing the administrations and game plays of art museums and galleries. "It is perhaps ironic that mail art attracts shy individuals who by definition tend to be aware of the network of people, from all walks of life and not necessarily artists, who communicate their creativity through the postal  system" Michael Lumb
 
 

Initially the correspondence was limited to two individuals that lived quite close or at least in the same country, but in a short time it disregarded the boundaries of countries, disregarded social and political views and the communication took off on a global scale. The movement has continued to grow and now days thousands of people are active with this means of art communication. It has also evolved to include Fax Art, and is seen by some commentators as a fore runner to web exhibitions where a global audience can choose what it wishes to view. While the art work exchanged has some importance, the packaging, and associated artifacts of posting and delivery also have an importance, The stamps and artist attachments, rubber stamps, drawings etc. the abrasive marks of transportation 

While there are no specific rules, it is generally seen that:

around the postobjects many actions have evolved from exhibitions, performances, documentation's, books, posters to festivals.
 

If  the act of exchange, the sending and receiving of work, documentation etc. is of most importance in mail art then it would seem that Fax art e-mail art and the use of the internet for exhibitions would be the ideal medium. In recent times there has been a  proliferation of this electronic communication. But some critics have  suggested that  while there are  advantages of speed and efficiency in this form of  communication this very advantage  becomes its limitation. Largely this speed removes the notion of distance, and of time, removes the notion of global position. There is also the lack of material artifact in the form of stamps, envelopes, wrappings etc. and of course the work itself is missing 3D qualities, subtleties, texture, the ravages of wear and tear inflicted by the postal system. There is also a difference in how an exhibition might be posted on the web. A mail artist might have to (or be able to) search for information on an exhibition rather than receive one in the post. 

For me both snail mail and e mail have qualities I identify with, it  is not that one is better than the other but that the broader category of mail art continues to expand. I engage in both. As it fulfils a need, the importance of creating and communicating,  it appears that mail art will continue,