Mail art

Mail art is a contemporary art movement that uses postage stamps and other postal materials as pictorial media that are turned into works of art outside the context of writing. Today, mail art is an art collaboration of painting and graphics with elements of mail, the Internet, mobile communications, which is embodied in collage, decollage, assemblage, photomontage, installation, performance. The main media are postage stamps, postcards, envelopes, receipts, wafers, postmarks, audio cassettes, CDs, audio files. When passing through the mail, the work is supplemented by a seal from a postmark, which is a kind of creative process. Mail art compositions can be created from applications cut out from envelopes, books, newspapers. The artist can depict stamps using graphic or pictorial techniques, as well as use photocopies. Homemade stamps have a special meaning, which give the works a special character and identify the artist. This art movement is closely related to Dadaism, Fluxus, Pop Art and Digital Art.

Key artists: Ryosuke Cohen, Rud Janssen, Ry Nikonova, Dmitry Bulatov, Yuri Gik, Mikhail Pogarsky, Vladimir Kotlyarov-Tolstoy.