Special delivery: Postage stamp art exhibit
arrives at Fine Arts Gallery
The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery's next exhibit, "Faux Post:
Artists' Postage Stamps from the International Mail Art Network," features
a unique contemporary art form - the artist postage stamp. The exhibition
opens June 27 and continues through Aug. 15.
These miniature works of art are produced in small editions and distributed
among collectors and artists. Artistamps mimic the look and scale of conventional
postage stamps; however, they were never intended to be used as payment
for postage.
"Faux Post" features faux stamps created by more than 50 artists
from more than 20 countries, and provides a look into the underground and
cutting-edge art movement of Mail Art. Many of the artists included in "Faux
Post" are practitioners of this contemporary artistic movement that
began in the mid-1950s when artists began mailing small works of art to
an international group of art world insiders.
The works exhibited in "Faux Post" were created with such non-traditional
media as photocopy, rubber stamping, computer scanning and color laser printing
as well as the traditional printmaking techniques of lithography, engraving
and wood cuts.
Just as all standard postage stamps focus on a subject, the faux stamps
included in the exhibit represent a number of themes. Don Evans, one of
the most recognized of mail artists, creates imaginary worlds with fictitious
typography, characters and social customs; while other artists use the stamps
as vehicles to draw attention to pressing social concerns.
"Faux Post" is curated by John Held Jr., director and founder
of the Modern Realism Archive in Dallas and is organized and toured by Visual
Arts Resources, a program of Lane Arts Council. "Faux Post" may
be viewed Monday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed
weekends during the summer and July 4.
The Fine Arts Gallery is located on the Vanderbilt University campus in
the Fine Arts Building, also known as the Old Gym, at the corner of 23rd
and West End avenues.
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Document Created June 26, 1997
by Billy Kingsley