Correspondence Art

Michael Crane, Mary Stofflet [Eds]

Correspondence Art

San Francisco: Contemporary Arts Press, 1984

522 pp., 8vo, softcover

Edition size unknown

Subtitled "The Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity”, this mid-eighties book is the first major anthology to document the international mail art scene. 

The title is divided into four parts: "A Definition of Correspondence Art," "The Origins of Mail Art,” "The Spread of Mail Art," and "Exhibitions and Publications.” It features contributions by Ken Friedman, Dick Higgins, Ulises Carrión, Judith A. Hoffberg, Jean-Marc Poinsot, Milan Knizak, Klaus Groh, Anna Banana, Robert Rehfeldt, Edgardo-Antonio Vigo, C. E. Loeffler, Peter Frank, and many others. 

"Artists involved in correspondence use a variety of means to send art through the mails, including artist-produced postcards, postage stamps, broadsides,"zines," drawings, collage, rubber stamps, found images, and color xerox. As a contemporary art activity based on the interactive flow of ideas and information, correspondence artists have produced an abundance of materials which are basic to their art exchange.”

- back cover blurb