Existing comment:
Edgardo Vigo (1928–1997, Argentinian)
Mail art to John Held Jr., 1991
This piece by Edgardo Vigo references several other mail artists with a series of intricate artistamps depicting Lon Spiegelman, Graciela Gutiérrez Marx, and Günther Ruch (see reverse side). The dispersion of these artists throughout the world (the United States, Argentina, and Switzerland, respectively) illustrates the power and reach of the mail art network. Vigo reportedly referred to his hometown of La Plata, Argentina, as being "known for its tranquility bordering on inertia." When this description of a cultural wasteland is contrasted with the idea of Vigo as an internationally celebrated artist, the power of the mail art network to give a voice to lesser known artists with limited access to art institutions becomes evident.
For artists working outside of the gallery or institutional setting, mail art was a truly democratizing force in the dissemination of their work in an age before the internet. For the nominal fee of postage, their art would be carried by the post office to nearly any viewer in any corner of the globe. Vigo eloquently sums this up when he wrote in his diary that, "MAILART has effected connections between international marginalities, the expansion of their interchanges, the distribution of their multiples, the exchange or the polemics of their theories, inviting profound dialogue."
-- Mathew Goodwin |