It was a postcard — but not the mass-printed variety. A collage incorporating multiple materials, the object included a Web address, artisinalpostcards.tumblr.com. The typewritten note said I was “receiving this from the Random Acts of Mail Art project.” While I wasn’t expected to do anything as a result, I was invited to pass along snail-mail addresses of anybody else who might like to get such a card. Elsewhere it said: “ARTISANAL POSTCARD #289.”

I was interested. Obviously mail art has a long and rich history (I can remember participating in at least one mail project back in my college years). But here I was curious about the decision to tie this analog and personal form to a regularly updated blog, which functioned both to publicize and extend the project. I also liked the actual work — both my physical card, and the many digital reproductions on the Tumblr. There wasn’t much information on the site at the time, but when I checked again more recently some detail had been added, and I got in touch with the project’s creator, Jill Stoll.

Continued: Jill Stoll combines artistic ritual, creative reuse, and the postal service as connector.: Observatory: Design Observer

British artist Tomas Georgeson wants people to visit Milton Keynes Gallery in the UK, so he’s hidden a blank check for £8,000 ($12,600) in the art gallery.

Visitors have until March 1st to find the check before it is removed. Georgeson hopes that the hunt for the check will raise local interest and increase visitor numbers, and he has placed an advert in a local paper to inform the residents.

(via Artist Hides 8,000 Pound Check In Gallery To Increase Visitor Numbers - PSFK)

Man Bartlett, “Where a chair was present” (2010), mixed-media collage, 5 x 7 inches

On eBay right now, you can buy a piece of tape used to mark the position of the visitors’ chair from Marina Abramović’s epic 2010 performance at the Museum of Modern Art. That might strike you as a fairly minute and extreme bit of fan ephemera, which it may very well be. But it’s also an artwork by Man Bartlett.

“Where a chair was present” (clever! Abramović’s show was called The Artist Is Present) is actually the title of the work being sold, and technically it’s a collage, albeit one that Bartlett made by sticking the spike tape on a piece of paper and signing the back. “It’s somewhere in between appropriation and shenanigans,” he told Hyperallergic. It might also be somewhere between hero worship and art — or maybe it’s tribute art, like Shepherd Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster, minus the political aim.

 More: Get a Piece of Marina Abramović

Untitled Project: GIFT CARD [$500],

oil on carved wood,

4 3/4 x 6 1/4 x 1/4 inches, 2012

(via Untitled Project: GIFT SHOP — Untitled Project: GIFT CARD [$500])

Speaking of gifts … new from Conrad Bakker.

junkculture:

Artist Robert Wechsler creates amazing sculptural cubes by joining pennies in perfect orientation to one another…more

New York City gallery W/—— ‘s Disposable Cameras project, on display at the NADA art fair in Miami through this weekend: If you visit W/——’s booth at the fair, you’ll find a wall of 24 hanging disposable cameras, each with a very hefty price tag.

Each of the 24 cameras was given to a photographer/artist to do with as they pleased. The cameras were then returned by the artists to W/—— in time for this art show. The cameras, filled with the undeveloped and therefore un-viewable work of their temporary owners, are now on sale for $1,000 a piece to optimistic patrons browsing NADA.

Ha: We are starting to commission artists to work with everyday objects and re-appropriate them to create functioning art.

Fowler is pleased to present YEAR TWO, our annual birthday party celebration being held on Friday, December 7th from 7-10pm. Artists from all over the United States have sent postcard-sized works that will be filling our gallery walls. All work will be affordably priced at $80 or below. Many local businesses have generously donated gifts and prizes to be raffled off at the end of the evening. See the amazing list of prizes below. Check back soon for a list of exhibiting artists!

This year because of the devastation so many of us have experienced as a result of Hurricane Sandy, we will be donating 25% of funds raised from the evening through artwork, raffle ticket, and beer/wine sales to the NYFA’s Emergency Relief Fund to support artists most affected by the storm. The rest of what we raise will contribute to the Fowler operating and exhibitions budget for 2013.

I have no idea what the deal is here, but I’m somehow on these folks’ email list and I like that promo image. So if you live in NYC: Fowler Arts Collective — YEAR TWO — Friday, Dec. 7th, 2012

Bridging futurist design, letterpress technique and augmented reality, “The Airship” is a new graphic novel from Todd Thyberg. The writer, illustrator and publisher is also the founder of Angel Bomb Design + Letterpress, and has put his array of talents to the test in this work.

Twenty-two photopolymer plates were used to pull nearly 10,000 impressions in all, with Thyberg walking ten miles beside his 90-year-old machine throughout the process. The resultant tricolor prints were then assembled in short runs of both hardbound and chapbook editions.

(via The Airship)

“No Longer Art,” such a cool idea for a show!

To give a brief explanation of art that is no longer art: Sometimes the cost of restoring a work of art exceeds the value of the work, in which case the insurer declares a total loss, and the work is declared no longer art—that is, of no market value. The damage can range from obvious to subtle—from a ripped painting or shattered sculpture to a wrinkle in a photographic print, or mold damage which can’t be seen at all.

As it wouldn’t do to send the not-artwork to the crematorium—the work might be of scholarly value, or might one day be worth repairing, or might one day be more easily repaired—the work is stored, not dead, but in a state of indefinite coma.

The Salvage Art Institute …  collects and exhibits not-art.

(via What happens to art that gets damaged? No Longer Art at Columbia, reviewed. - Slate Magazine)

Sometimes, bad client feedback is so bad, it becomes a work of art. And that’s exactly what you’ll get with “Sharp Suits: A Creative Catharsis.” This Irish art exhibit, originally on display in a Dublin cafe, features some truly magical interpretations of bizarre client commentary, such as “Everyone knows girls under 25 don’t wear skirts” and “The dog is off-brand.” The work was created by ad creatives based on “their favorite worst feedback from clients.”

(via Horrible Client Feedback Turned Into Hilarious Works of Art | Adweek)

Beatkit™ was a brand without a product that promised to cease and desist in the year 2000, which it did. Beatkit’s mantra was “the general gloss of falsity is our only product”, which was a long-winded way of saying “Beatkit: it’s all lies.” So despite what I say it actually did have a product, the RemoverInstaller™, which was a baby rattle type of device except with no rattle and no moving parts. It had no function or utility of any kind, except to inspire an ad campaign around itself, Panic Now. Panic Now was similar to other real-world ad campaigns, except it dispensed with any pretense to romance or amuse you and instead just focused on the naked howling truth of all ads, i.e. “Stop whatever you”re doing and look at this. You don’t even know what it is but you need it. Don’t try to reason your way through it or out of it, just panic. Now.”

Shawn Wolfe (interview by Kristen Rask of Schmancy Toys, CrownDozen, 2007)

As Real As It Gets runs from November 16 till December 22. It opens on Thursday, November 15: 6-8 pm.

Apexart is located at 291 Church Street , New York, NY 10013 USA

See you there!