Intimate Bureaucracies Art and the Mail

This is the blog for the exhibition Intimate Bureaucracies: Art and the Mail at Art Exchange, University of Essex. I’m the curator of the exhibition, which developed out of my PhD research on mail art, art circulation, networks, Fluxus, Latin America and net.art. I’m going to be posting information about mail art, the art and artists in the exhibition and any other bureaucratic goings-on that amuse me.

There are several different elements of the exhibition:

1) Artworks by ten artists whose work engages with the mail system and circulation in interesting ways, to be displayed at Art Exchange. These are: Felipe Ehrenberg, Carlos Ginzburg, Walead Beshty, Cristiano Lenhardt, Eugenio Dittborn, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Cildo Meireles, León Ferrari, Ray Johnson

2) Send Me a Flower, etc: an open call for mail art works that anyone can participate in. I’ll be posting photos of the work submitted. See the call for works on this blog.

3) A catalogue that will be accessed here as a PDF or sent as a gift-parcel. Designed by artist Milena Galli, it is a little exhibition itself.

4) Some Cut Flowers by David Horvitz is a project done especially for the exhibition in which David sends a flower in a bottle each day. The bottles travel from Brooklyn, New York and will accumulate in the gallery but perhaps they will confiscated by customs officers - a gift for the bureaucrats.

5) Events!

Thursday 24th February 2011:

Carlos Ginzburg's Talk-Performance-Quotation, 1pm

Exhibition Opening, Art Exchange, 6pm

Tuesday 1st March 2011:

Curator's talk, Art Exchange 1pm

Wednesday 23rd March 2011:

Circulatory Strategies, Art Exchange 6-8pm

Guy Brett, Gabriela Salgado & Alex Sainsbury

Admission free, booking essential. Email: arts@essex.ac.uk

+ Closing Party drinks!

Artist Talk: David Horvitz, date & venue tbc