Official Art?
Dublin Core
Title
Official Art?
Subject
Mail art
Description
Official Art? is a brochure created by Russian artist Serge Segay (1947-2014) specifically for the first mail art exhibition in the USSR which took place in Yeysk in 1989. The brochure served as an exhibition advertising. The visual aesthetic and a message of the brochure was very clear and easy recognizable for Soviet people because Soviet designers widely used similar visual representation for different books and magazines. The most popular category among them was children books that each family had in their houses in 1970-1980s, and, thus, they were very familiar with such visual aesthetic.
In the brochure Segay used text, first, to provide very strict but ample information about exhibition dates, place and time; second, to clarify metaphorical meaning of the image. On the picture the ant is an embodiment of “tiny” and “fragile” official art. The author emphasizes the idea that official art is very “weak” by comparing it with the “powerful” mail art that Segay depicted as a massive cylindrical piece of wood in man’s hand that wants to kill the ant. Moreover, the title of the work Official Art? emphasizes the weakness of official art by using a question mark as if it would try to question the fact of its existence. The use of English and Russian languages emphasizes an international orientation of the exhibition.
In the brochure Segay used text, first, to provide very strict but ample information about exhibition dates, place and time; second, to clarify metaphorical meaning of the image. On the picture the ant is an embodiment of “tiny” and “fragile” official art. The author emphasizes the idea that official art is very “weak” by comparing it with the “powerful” mail art that Segay depicted as a massive cylindrical piece of wood in man’s hand that wants to kill the ant. Moreover, the title of the work Official Art? emphasizes the weakness of official art by using a question mark as if it would try to question the fact of its existence. The use of English and Russian languages emphasizes an international orientation of the exhibition.
Creator
Serge Segay
Source
John Held papers relating to Mail Art, 1973-2013
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/official-art-834
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/official-art-834
Publisher
Archives of American Art
Date
1989
Contributor
Mariia Spirina
Rights
Current copyright status is undetermined
Relation
[no text]
Format
Mail art : 1 item : ill. ; 20 x 15 cm.
Language
english
Type
Mail art
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Files
Collection
Citation
Serge Segay, “Official Art?,” Collaborative Correspondence: Mail Art from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, accessed May 10, 2024, https://collaborativecorrespondence.omeka.net/items/show/6.