Many of the items in Mogens Otto Nielsen’s mail art archive are personal messages, and it is very difficult to distinguish private messages and artistic expressions intended for the network or a more general public. As in many other cases with this type of art the boundaries between categories – here public and private – are fuzzy or overlapping. The mail art network is a muddle of personal, communal, open, and closed exchanges.

Henning Mittendorf: “Happy New Year Homo Faber”, probably 1990.

Intentionally there are no spectators in mail art. There is no audience, only participants, and when there is an audience, for example in mail art exhibitions, the audience is often encouraged to take part. Recently the Danish artist Mogens Otto Nielsen (b. 1945), who originally received and archived the mail art pieces in here,  exhibited his artists’ books (with and without mail art pieces and stamps) alongside a workshop, where the audience was invited to cut, paste, stamp and combine her or his own piece. More information and pictures here (only in Danish).