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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Visual Art A New Piece of Art Delivered to Your Valentine Every Month

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:21 PM

The king of mail art in the Seattle universe is Aaron Bagley. This is his Rauschenberg Couch. I prefer to call it his Rauschenberg Couchenberg.

Aaron Bagley
The king of mail art in the Seattle universe is Aaron Bagley. This is his Rauschenberg Couch. I prefer to call it his Rauschenberg Couchenberg.

Now I don't forward every Tom, Dick, and Harry of a subscription series your way, but this one is worth considering: Art Practical, a Bay Area online arts mag, is launching a mail art subscription you buy for $150, and for that, you get a work of art every month for six months by some pretty great artists (including Martha Rosler!).

It's also a crossover project between writers and artists. Every month, the chosen artist (Rosler, Anthony Discenza, Alicia Escott, Colter Jacobsen, Anthony Marcellini, and an unnamed mystery sixth) will create a work that responds to a piece of writing from the magazine. You'll get the artwork (it's a limited edition of 150), the original essay, and a return postcard you're invited to send back with your own contributions to be collected into an archive.

The cutoff date is March 1, and it would make the perfect Valentine for all those art procrastinators out there...Check it.

Comments (8) RSS

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Really, the king of mail art in the Seattle universe is Aaron Bagely, are you sure? Because I'd think that title would go to a more local enterprise, www.lengthbywidthbyheight.com, which supports artists and writers from our own town.

Posted by A Local Subscriber on February 14, 2012 at 6:28 PM

Posted by A Local Art Subscriber on February 14, 2012 at 6:31 PM

Posted by A Local Art Subscriber on February 14, 2012 at 6:34 PM

Posted by A Local Art Subscriber on February 14, 2012 at 6:40 PM

I remember Miranda July doing an art by mail project as well. It definitely looks cool, might have to check it out!

Posted by Zog in PDX on February 15, 2012 at 8:58 AM

Seattle' hidden treasure and master visual poet Richard Kehl has been sending proactive and profoundly surprising art mail freely to the lucky recipients he loves, for many years now.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=…

Posted by laura castellanos

on February 15, 2012 at 10:34 AM

Sorry I left out LXWXH! Glad you added the link. Bagley is the local individual artist (that I know of) who works most in mail art -- or at least he used to. He sent hundreds of pieces of art out every month.

Posted by Jen Graves on February 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM

@Zoq in PDX - Miranda July's project has been going on since 2007; it's called The Thing Quarterly. that's the very project that put the whole idea in my head in the first place. http://www.thethingquarterly.com/about-t…

thanks for the shout out. I'm a fan of any subscription project being a bridge between worlds - now if we can just get crossover from music as well we'd be set! :)

Posted by sharonArnold