Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
Exhibition Coordinator: Kathy Tycholis
288 artists from all over the world have contributed postcard-size artworks for the 2023 Mail Art Exhibition and Fundraiser. Organized in tandem with the exhibition Sonja Ahlers: Classification Crisis, this open-call exhibition invited artists to mail in one original piece of artwork in response to the theme of “collecting and reassembling.” See a list of all the artists included in the exhibition in the Downloads menu on the right.
Also known as postal art and correspondence art, mail art is an artistic movement centered on sending and sharing small-scale works through the postal service. Based on the principles of equal, one-to-one collaboration between artists, mail art has become a worldwide cultural movement for artists to share visual art, poetry, or any other artistic form through the postal system. Generally seen as an art movement that emphasizes artistic experimentation combined with humour, spontaneity, and simplicity of materials, it is an art form that is intended to bypass the usual gallery system. For many Mail Artists, the process of exchanging ideas and collaboration within a global community is valued above the aesthetic merits of the finished product, differentiating the Mail Art Network from the world of commercial postcards and of simply “mailed art”.
Through the 2000s, Richmond Art Gallery hosted regular mail art and artist trading card exhibitions that over time included thousands of artists from all over the world. Given Sonja Ahlers’ engagement with mail art and mixed tape exchanges throughout her career, it seemed fitting to revive the Mail Art Exhibition at the Richmond Art Gallery, ten years after the last one in 2013.
To continue the democratic tradition of this art form, all mailed-in entries the gallery received are featured in this exhibition.
Once the exhibition in the Gallery closes, these artworks will be auctioned off to raise funds in support of our public programs. The main auction closed the evening of November 18, 2023.
We thank all the artists involved in this exhibition for their generosity in donating their artworks, and to all of those who will purchase their artworks.
