You've Got Mail: The History of Mail Art

January 18, 2023

Art

Niki Williams

Writer at Bond & Grace

There is an artistic desire to share in order to attract. By making their work and engaging with who is drawn to it, they create within objects a material language, with which to track down and tune into the ineffable sense of self found in another’s mind. The means by which artists share their work has changed over time as new technologies emerge. From charcoal on a cave wall left for whoever will find it— to digital charcoal on an equally stoney cave wall rendered within virtual reality goggles and live streamed on twitch; we have nearly come full circle. As part of our exploration of the art of letter writing, this week we are focusing on how artists created and shared their work by means of the U.S. Postal service.

The American Mail Art Movement emerged out of the churning search for self that our nation reckoned with through the 1950s and 1960s, from post war consumerism, to the civil rights movement. During this period, artists began to express their own individual search for self through the creation and exchange of small, often ephemeral works of art through the mail. Artworks were created out of envelopes and rubber stamps, artists experimented with new forms of consumer printing such as xerox machines. These unlikely vehicles allowed for artists to share their work at a time when national and international exposure for art was limited to print magazines and expensive books. Characterized by its use of unconventional materials and its anti-establishment stance, the Mail Art Movement’s core was its emphasis on collaboration and community. It was, in a sense, a precursor to the social exchange that many artists use across social media platforms.

Ray Johnson, born in Detroit in 1927, is often credited as the founder of the mail art movement. Johnson established The New York Correspondence School in the 1960s, his practice made use of collage, found objects, and chains of mail correspondence between his friends and colleagues. These chains of correspondence would ask their recipient to “add to and forward to…” someone else, or “return to…” Johnson himself, or even “do not send to…”, another person. Known for his wit and humor, his art often contained hidden messages and jokes that were meant to be discovered by the viewer. Reflecting on Johnson’s activities, art critic David Bourdon wrote in Art Forum, “If you say Ray Johnson has been mailing his life away for 15-20 years, no one will contradict you. Everybody has been saying “over 10 years” for years.

Who does he write to? The correspondence, while extensive, is highly selective. Some people have implored for years to be put on his “mailing list” without result. I don’t believe Ray feels obligated to “answer” every piece of nutty mail he receives from strangers. I would say he corresponds with those who are likely to be in tune with his way of thinking. These may be total strangers: people whose art or life he “digs.” It has to be something that meshes with his own fantasies. If people don’t respond (and many respond negatively) he usually drops them from his mailing list—though he may occasionally dun them with cryptic—and abusive—mailings. He likes it when the recipient responds and “plays the game.”

This idea of “playing the game” and developing a social network is key to the form of mail art. There is a playful collaboration between the creator and the receiver that is inherent to the medium. In a 1968 interview, Johnson explained that he found mailed correspondence interesting because of the limits it puts on the usual interaction and negotiation that comprises communication between individuals. Correspondence is “a way to convey a message or a kind of idea to someone which is not verbal; it is not a confrontation of two people. It’s an object which is opened in privacy, probably, and the message is looked at … You look at the object and, depending on your degree of interest, it very directly gets across to you what is there”.

Johnson’s work inspired many other artists to distribute their work through the mail. For example, Martha Wilson, a pioneer of feminist performance art, used mail art to send provocative and political messages to a wide audience. Wilson was a member of the Franklin Furnace, a New York-based organization that supported and exhibited mail art, and she used the medium to explore issues such as gender, identity, and the body.

Martha Wilson, pictured in 1972 as one of her many self-portrait characters.

Other artists who have engaged with mail art include Yoko Ono, who used the medium to communicate with other artists and activists around the world, and Liliana Porter, an Argentine artist known for her delicate and subtle works that often incorporate found objects. Porter has used mail art to create installations and exhibitions that explore themes of memory and loss.

A stamp created by Ono in 1986.

Because of its populist accessibility, mail art was often adopted as a form of resistance against mainstream art institutions and the commercial art market. Many artists have used the medium to bypass the barriers of traditional artistic institutions and reach a wider audience, creating networks of support and exchange. These networks was decentralized, with no central authority or hierarchy, and it allowed artists to reach an audience that might not have seen their work otherwise. This ethos of a decentralized distribution of art has evolved today into memes and correspondences across social media.

Although the technology is new, the intention to share, to tune into likeminded people, and to explore new intellects remain at the forefront of most artists’ minds. Despite these technological changes, the spirit of the mail art movement - the idea of creating and exchanging artworks through personal connections and networks - remains alive and well.