Going postal : surrealism and the discourses of mail art
ABSTRACT: The chief objective of this study is to examine how the French surrealists responded to the discourses of the post and to position the surrealists as early practitioners of mail art. References to the mail, its system and ephemera pervade early modernist art movements, such as futurism, dadaism, and surrealism. However, the term mail art is most commonly associated with the movement portrayed as having been pioneered in the 1950s by U.S. artist Ray Johnson. As a result, the critical literature on mail art generally overlooks the complexities and sophistication with which early modern artists viewed the conventions of postal practice
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2008