Agregue y Devuelva. Mail Art in the MIDE-CIANT collections

Agregue y devuelta. Mail Art in the MIDE-CIANT collections is the title of this exhibition and editorial project organized by the MIDE-CIANT -International Museum of Electrography, Center for Innovation in Art and New Technologies of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, with the goal of celebrating 30 years of the museum.

During the months of May and June 2021, can be seen in the Sala Acua/UCLM, in the Temporary Exhibition Rooms of the Fundación Antonio Pérez of Cuenca, and in the Temporary Rooms of the Museo de Obra Gráfica of San Clemente, an extensive sample of works International Mail Art.

These works come from the generous donations received at the MIDE-CIANT/UCLM at the end of 2018 from the private collections of the artists Cesar Reglero, Valdor (Salvador Benincasa) and Antonio S. Ibirico. Collections composed of his own works and private collections. In 2020 we received the donation of the artists and publishers Alfonso Aguado, Pere Sousa, José Emilio Antón and Manuel Xio, to which we will add in this year 2021 the donations of the artists Diego Segura, Lois Gil Magariños the collection of the Fira Mágica de Santa Susana, and the private collection of Marta Nieves Vaquero widow of the mail artist Nel Amaro.

“Summarizing in a few words what this vast global movement is, in which thousands of people from all continents have participated simultaneously for five decades, is an incomplete task in itself. The origins could be located in the Black Mountain of North Carolina in the 50s, Ray Johnson’s Moticos – collages that Ray sent to his friends-, the New York Correspondence School, the meetings “nothings”, nothing, alternative to the Happenings of the time… The exchange of artistic material, the sending of pieces by mail with the slogan “save it and return it or pass it on” began to circulate at first in a small group of artists that little by little was expanded and spread universally. ” (Merz Mail; 2011)

Always starting from its character of free expression and non-commercialization, Mail Art in Spain had a great reception since the 70s, expanding during the 80s when the use of photocopying machines spread, being during the following decade when its popularity and participation experienced its greatest boom.

Agregue y devuelva (mail art) 

The collections donated to the MIDE-CIANT include all kinds of Postal Art, we can find from postcards and artist envelopes, artist stamps, collages, pad prints, copy art, to digital art, objects, visual poetry, engravings, drawings, books of artist, editions, fanzines, assembled magazines, audiovisual material and a large amount of documentation on artists and the Mail Art movement itself, not forgetting dozens of self-published catalogs and information on national and international calls that have given it shape and life, escaping of the official circuits during the last decades.

In the three rooms we can see the work of 43 artists selected from a total of more than 900 artists represented in this collection. Likewise, a selection of poetic objects, stamps, fanzines and the I Call for Mail Art of MIDE-CIANT 2020.

The works are distributed in the three rooms according to the origin of the authors and small collections organized according to typologies are also presented:

• In the Sala Acua/UCLM in Cuenca we can see the work of 16 Spanish artists and the I Call for Mail Art of the MIDE-CIANT/UCLM 2019-2020.
• In the Temporary Rooms of theFundación Antonio Pérez in Cuenca we can see the proposals of 14 European and Asian artists and the collection of poetic objects.
• In the Temporary Rooms of theMuseo Obra Gráfica de San Clemente of the FAP we can see the work of 13 artists from the north and south of the American continent and the collections of fanzines and stamps.