Tag Archives: mail-art

POSTCARDS FROM EAST-BERLIN / GDR

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The above colorant picture shows a detail of the wall freeze at House of the Teacher near Alexanderplatz, Berlin-Mitte. It was realized by GDR artist Walter Womacka in 1965 and reflects the modern spirit of those days quite well in the style of Socialist Realism. However, similar imagery like here above did exist in the West as well in the 1960s –  mostly on rather large houses.

Parade in East-Berlin / 30th anniversary of the founding of the GDR
photo made on 7 October 1979 by Wolfgang Kluge, CC-BY-SA 3.0

In the early 1980s I already lived in West-Berlin and joined the international mail-art network where I was active till 1991. Here artists from around the world practized mutual exchange and collaborations via the good old postal services, a kind of slow blogging existing till today.

Especially for people living in the former communist countries of East-Europe mail-art was a nice option for keeping in touch with the rest of the world. So here I will show you some postcards and/or other correspondence received by me from East-Berlin and other parts of former GDR in the 1980s.

I know nothing but art / Robert Rehfeldt, East-Berlin

A printed message / Joseph W. Huber, East-Berlin

I was also sometimes, not very often, in East-Berlin, so I did meet Robert Rehfeldt and Joseph W. Huber also in real life and personally, both are already deceased. 

Jungle of Art / Collaborative, postal and collective collage

I am writing and posting all this as part of a global process which means fundamental creativity in itself.

Authorities misdirect / Roland Beier, Neubrandenburg

Abstraction / Jörg Sonntag, Dresden

Exit-Sticker / Wolfgang Schneider & Thomas Westermann, Magdeburg

Looking at the diverse messages nearly 40 years later is quite strange, I can mostly not find anything GDR typical, may be in the next one.

Decadent mail (both sides) / Birger Jesch, Dresden

Creativity and/or art and/or anti-art (whatever you prefer and like) can not be controlled completely or transmuted to sheer propaganda it will  always survive and blossom  at least in our minds from where new bridges can be built even thru very thick walls and right out of gruesome dungeons. 



Serigraphy / Uwe Dressler, Cottbus

AFTER DADAISM, MAILISM COMES TOURISM

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Mailart – a subversive form of expression

Stampart on envelope, Hans-Ruedi Fricker,,Switzerland, 1986

I am very thankful that I was in touch with Hans-Ruedi for many years by mail. And in the 1980s I also visited him at his creative office in Trogen. Me and my wife were his family’s guests in this nice alpine region “Appenzeller Land”. We were just tourists looking for leisure and trying to learn a little bit more about Switzerland.

Yummi! Monstrous windbags enjoyed at Cafe Seeblick, Alt-Globsow, Germany, July 7 2023

And yes, Hans-Ruedi was completely right, tourism is just as important as mail-art. Both bring people from other countries together for a better understanding of our nice blue planet and such securing peace here in Europe and everywhere on Earth.

Programmatic messages by mail, Hans-Ruedi Fricker, Switzerland, 1983

P. S.  I am writing all this as a mere tourist while being some days in the very nice and natural green old village of Alt-Globsow, Mark Brandenburg, Germany

Sun-set at Fürstenberg with Havel river, Germany, July 6, 2023

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MAIL-ART – ANALOG BLOGGING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

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Object for my “Visions of an Imaginary Spartakiade at the Northpole” Project, Klaus Groh, Germany

People think today that everything is so much better and unique today with all this technical progress and the digital virtual world. But people managed to live quite well with analog techniques in former times, and even blogging did exist long time before in the 20th century (and till today) by using simply the old international postal system which till today connects the world.

Copyart for my “Jungle of Art” Project, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Germany

Collective and wandering art-object, Europe

Creative people following the ideas of fluxus formed in the last century an international mail-art network of artists for collaboration, inspiration and support beyound the commercial and institutionalized forms of visual art. And I have been part of the same in the 80s of the last century such leading to a lot of nice and unexpected surprises when going early in the morning to my letter-box.

Stamps by Pat Fish, Uunited States of America

Mixed technique postcard, Jorge Orta, Argentina

Especially for creative people in the East-European countries this communication was very important and vital before the political changes of 1989 and the years to follow. But also for all others this was an appreciated independent and free gate to the wide world. The collaboration in this network comprised also real projects and challenges like in the blogosphere today.

Serigraph on postcard by Ryosuke Cohen, Japan

“I know nothing than art”, postcard by Robert Rehfeldt, Germany

Very common were mail-art object magazines where for each edition people could send 100 copies or pieces or originals, etc. in a special size, the editor would then compile the diverse entries to 100 diverse mail-art object magazines, and afterwards each participant would receive one copy of this back home by the post.

Quarterly published mailart object-magazine by Vittore Baroni, Italy

Other forms of collaboration in this sector are wandering changing art objects (more on this in a future post), and mail-art shows with special topics where each entry from the diverse countries will in any case be presented in the show whereever (living-room, institutions, public showcase and today also in the internet or blogs) followed by some kind of documentation for each of the participating persons (poster, brochure, small catalogue, etc.).

Stamp-art on envelope by H. R. Fricker, Switzerland

Mail art object by Géza Perneczky, Germany/Hungary

This kind of mutual international exchange follows of course another velocity than the contemporary digital world, but movements like slow cities or slow food proove that not everybody is happy about the recent virtual developments which have happened mainly in the last 2 decades. So, here you see some pure analog artistic stuff like beautiful postcards and envelopes, varied stamp-art and inspiring objects which reached  me via the international postal services.

Collage/Copyart on postcard by Richard Meade, United States of America

The last piece shown here at the very end is really a quite robust-crazy object from my archive brought to me by a postman, a simple red brick with the inscription Einstein standing for both a stone and the famous physician. The brick was delivered by the post unpacked as a parcel, on the backside of the brick my name and adress were also inscripted reminding a little bit to petroglyphs from ancient times.