Exhibition pamphlet PDF download for We Live in Real Time: A Window Exhibition of Mail Art Made During the Pandemic at Printed Matter Inc. / St. Marks.

In April and May of this year, Printed Matter/St Marks put out an open call for mail art submissions with the prompt “We live in real time.” Mail art has a deep association with Printed Matter’s mission of circumventing the institutional spaces through which art is usually consumed by widely distributing artworks to be experienced within our daily lives. As a medium, mail art felt especially relevant at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic—sending art through the postal system allows for a new type of physical connection between people, places, and ideas. On view now in the windows of our storefront at 38 St Marks Place at the Swiss Institute is an exhibition of selected mail art submissions that we received from around the world.

Includes “An Abbreviated History of Mail Art ” by Lynn Maliszewski.