Existing comment:
Clemente Padin (b. 1939, Uruguayan)Mail art to John Held Jr., 1990
The sociopolitical potential of mail art is central to an understanding of Clemente Padin's work. This postcard features a collage calling for direct political action, the swift end to apartheid in South Africa, and the release of longtime political prisoner Nelson Mandela. Padin's home of Uruguay was controlled by a repressive civic-military dictatorship for much of the 1970s and 1980s. Censorship, torture, and "disappearing" political dissidents were common occurrences under this regime, in a manner not dissimilar to South Africa's governance under apartheid. Padin's mail art practice put him at great risk, but the political imperative deeply motivated and influenced his practice. Mail art served as a means to subvert the state propaganda machine and keep alive radical discourse and dissent. He explains that, "During the period of the dictatorships mail art turned totally to the denunciation and exposing of the national internal situation." Padin's network of mail artists was essential in communicating ideologies that otherwise would not have been allowed to be voiced.
-- Matthew Goodwin |