Southwest USA Decentralized Mail Art Congress Dallas

Southwest USA Decentralized Mail Art Congress Dallas

Mail Art

Southwest USA Decentralized Mail Art Congress_ Dallas features ten stamps by an anonymous artist that are put together to create one piece of mail art. Mail art centers around the idea of escaping the gallery and museum art scene where artists are weeded out by salability. It was a democratic art movement where creative people had no fear of rejection. It allows the participants to create networks and communities between the people who corresponded with each other. In Southwest USA Decentralized Mail Art Congress_ Dallas John Held Jr, whose papers in the Archives of American Art one can find this work, is shown as a caricature along with nine other known mail artists. This work is literally showing the network that he is a part of which he dubs the southwest decentralized mail art congress. The word ‘decentralized’ that the artist uses also showcases another aspect of mail art which is to have a decentralized movement where instead it follows a rhizomatic idea of no leader or central location. In many ways this work is a visual representation of the values of mail art.

Russell Butler, aka BuZ blurr

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/sheet-artistamps-833

Archives of American Art

1986

Whitney Hill

Artist Rights Society

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Sheet of artistamps

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Mail Art

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