Unique exhibition at British Museum celebrates Artists’ Postcards
Sending postcards has been a long holiday tradition for many British people but it has been massively declining over the years.
The advent of internet and social media have been the biggest factors leading to the massive drop in number of Britons sending postcards; Gatwick airport’s survey in 2017 revealed that only 28 per cent travellers sent postcards when they were last on holiday, compared with 70 per cent in 1997.
However, postcards are still valuable to artists as means of expression and medium for socio-political changes.
This can be observed in the first ever exhibition showcasing Artists’ postcards which is being held at the British Museum.
‘The world exists to be put on a postcard’ is a unique collection of contemporary postcard art from the 1960s to the present day.
A total of 300 postcards are on display which were carefully chosen from among the thousand gifted to the museum by the writer and postcard expert Jeremy Cooper.
Some of the highlights include cards made by feminist artists such as Lynda Benglis and Hanna Wilke, to Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s anti-Vietnam ‘War is Over’ postcard and the original invitation to Andy Warhol’s Holy Cow! Silver Clouds! Holy Cow! exhibition.
According to the curator Stephen Coppel, many artists have used this medium of art to highlight political and social issues throughout the history.
“Artists’ Postcards are very interesting because they are a medium by which artists can convey their ideas in the most democratic way. Their ideas can be playful, they can be subversive, they can be political. They can be used to raise consciousness about issues such as AIDS for example.”
The exhibition runs until the 4th of August and is free to the public.