Is It Worth It to Send Art Postcards to Nyc Galleries
West hen Jeremy Cooper was a cash-strapped history of art student in the belatedly 1960s, he hitchhiked around Italia collecting postcards from every church he visited. At the time, full-color illustrated books were beyond his ways, so the postcards were an cheap manner of collecting loftier-quality images of 14th-century Italian art. His fondness for postcards remained and decades subsequently, while he was working as an antiques dealer, he started to detect a large trunk of work that had never been fully explored: postcards created by contemporary artists.
Over the by x years, Cooper has been collecting postcards made by artists ranging from Yoko Ono to David Shrigley, Joseph Beuys to Marina Abramović, Gavin Turk to Gilbert & George. "The more I looked, the more I discovered that it'south a field of unrecognised historical significance – it just seemed completely neglected," he says. "These postcards were fabricated by artists as individual expressions, not just the reproduction of a work of art, which is what about postcards are."
The project was largely born out of Cooper'south antagonism to the huge sums of coin involved in art drove. Formerly an auctioneer at Sotheby's, Cooper quit the chore subsequently becoming disillusioned by endless discussion of how much a piece of art was "worth" (he left the BBC's Antiques Roadshow for like reasons). "I only didn't desire to be a role of it," he recalls. "I think millions of pounds per piece of work of art is grotesque, when there are loads of people finding it difficult to eat."
In that same civic-minded spirit, Cooper has donated 1,000 of the postcards he nerveless to the British Museum, where they volition exist exhibited next month; more than 300 of these are collected in a book charting their evolution from 1960 to the present 24-hour interval.
The format of the postcard, says Cooper, has been appealing to a diverseness of artists owing to its low product costs, versatile size and shape and the ease with which information technology tin can be distributed. For these aforementioned reasons, postcards are often used for political letters and concenter artists with an interest in disruption and subversion: Peter Kennard's anti-war postcards are included in the volume, as are feminist works past Zoe Leonard and the activist collective Guerrilla Girls (one postcard titled "The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist" includes reasons such every bit "piece of work without the pressure level of success").
Yet, within the confines of the format, the finished works differ wildly: techniques include screen printing on to the cards, creating collages out of them, scratching out holes or simply scribbling on top with a felt-tip pen. Some were made in large quantities, others are editions of one; some are manipulations of institute postcards, others are entirely original works of art. Nigh were really sent in the post, including i from 1969 that Jasper Johns sent to an fine art dealer as an invitation to his show. "He just gave it away. I mean, it isn't given away now, I can assure you. But a Jasper Johns painting [would cost] $20m – this [would be] £350 and information technology'south a lovely thing."
Different much collectible fine art, Cooper stresses, postcards are affordable – most of his cost less than £100, with the most expensive around the £v,000 mark. He was also given a number of items from artists such equally Tacita Dean and Rachel Whiteread, who were happy to aid out when they heard about his project.
"Information technology'southward possible to class a significant drove of extremely good and of import works of art without being wealthy," he says. "Anyone could decide to form a collection very close to mine with most of the same things – and I like that. Information technology'due south anti-exclusive."
The World Exists to Exist Put on a Postcard: Artists' Postcards from 1960 to At present past Jeremy Cooper volition be published by Thames & Hudson/the British Museum on vii February (£19.95). A free British Museum exhibition runs from 7 February to iv August
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/26/wish-you-were-here-postcards-from-artworld-jeremy-cooper-yoko-ono-gilbert-george
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