Mail Art, The Radical Art Form You Didn’t Know About In Chicago

Mail art began in the 1960s with Ray Johnson, who used the postal system to send collages, drawings, and notes as a form of artistic exchange. In Chicago, his ideas sparked a lively community of mail art clubs, turning the city into a central space for this accessible and unconventional art form. Reset learns about the history of mail art from Sofia Canale-Parola, multi-media artist and Ray Johnson Project Cataloger for the Art Institute; Derek Erdman, founder of Friend Club (Mail Art Correspondence Club); and Marissa Yelnick, member of the Friend Club. For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.