I’ve no actual figures on how postcard sales are faring these days, but they can’t be good. Why bother going through the hassle of trying to buy a stamp in some unpronounceable foreign language (they’re all unpronounceable), finding a postbox (they should be red, but often aren’t), and then having the thing arrive a week after you’ve got home, when you can just point your phone at something and post it on social media within seconds?
So instantly shared, instantly forgettable digital snaps have largely replaced postcards as the holiday memento of choice, but the postcard isn’t dead yet. Holidaymakers might not think much of them, but the exhibition The Postcard is a Public Work of Art proves that there’s plenty of mileage left in the medium. In the hands of 60 British-based artists, the humble postcard has been reborn. The brief from Jeremy Cooper of event organiser X Marks the Bökship was to express an aesthetic and intellectual idea in a postable format; some artists have given found material a reworking, while others have created entirely new postcards. There’s a big list of those involved, as well as a competition to win a boxed catalogue of postcards from the exhibition, here. The Postcard is a Public Work of Art can be seen at the London bookshop and project space from 23 January to 1 March.
Molly Rooke
Realistic Expectation
(1), (2) & (3) [2013]
Peter Sylveire
Please Repeat [2013]
Sara MacKillop
Postcard from an envelope 2 [2013]
Lewis Chaplin
The Tristans [2013]
Ruth Claxton
Postcard (St Cecilia) [2013]
Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips
Study of a Head XI [2013]
