Less and less postcards are being sent. As this classic form of communication becomes increasingly rare, its activation in contemporary art offers an interesting contrast. Three artists show conceptual approaches to this standardized format.
With Planet Earth: 21st Century, Daniela Comani (born 1965) presents 370 virtual city views. What look like aerial photographs are in fact rendered satellite images post-processed with the 3D map services Apple Maps Flyover and Google Earth Virtual Reality.
Mechtild Frisch (born 1943) perforates art postcards. Although this may recall the holes punched in tickets to cancel them, the opposite effect is in fact achieved. The countless holes in different patterns individualize each mass-produced postcard, lending it the aura of an original. The Van Gogh that was never actually a Van Gogh becomes a genuine Frisch.
Nadya Sayapina (born 1989) asked other émigrés from Belarus for photographs of places that remind them of their lost homeland. The Postcard Nowhere series consists of translations of these photographs into writing that repeats the sentence “I can walk any way, just not the way home” over and over in the language of the person’s new country of residence.