The Postcard Days
dal 9/5/2013 al 23/5/2013
Segnalato da
9/5/2013
The Postcard Days
3A Gallery, New York
Galleria Massimo Minini's 40th Anniversary Show. Massimo Minini, one of Europe's most admired art dealers has been operating his gallery for 40 years and has become a collector, not only collecting fine art, but postcards...
Massimo Minini, one of Europe’s most admired art dealers has been operating his gallery for 40 years and has become a collector, not only collecting fine art, but postcards. It’s not old-fashioned to collect postcards. 60’s artists had this passion, sometimes making art out of postcards, one example being On Kawara’s postcard piece: “I woke up at…” Minini, along with the 60’s generation of artists, collect and display in their private homes artworks of friends and postcards – postcards are cherished as both a kitsch-like art-form and an emblem of shared friendships. An exhibition of Minini’s personal postcard collection will be featured from Friday, May 10th to May 24th at 3A Gallery
THE POSTCARD DAYS by Massimo Minini
Once upon a time the world was different, maybe no worse, maybe no better, who’s to say.
In any case that world was there, just waiting to be seen even by mere mortals like ourselves, tourists driven by curiosity: not dauntless
African explorers, just earnest pilgrims in our humble red Fiat 500 “Topolinos”, Renault Dauphines, and Ford Anglias.
Wearing our sailor suits – as Susanna Agnelli would say – we roamed through Italy, then Europe and America, which to us mainly meant New York.
Some truly adventurous souls even made it as far as Los Angeles.
We were travelling in the days before highways, before cell phones, calling home from pay phones that took tokens: in Italy, these were made
of copper, with two grooves on one side and one groove on the other.
Back then you could count on fog in winter, fireflies in May, and swallows till the beginning of August.
The world was quite a discovery; though it had been discovered long ago, we were seeing it for the first time and just had to let our family
and friends in on the joy.
So how did we tell our loved ones all about it? With postcards, of course!
Colorful little pictures of vacationland, beaches lined with umbrellas, mountains cloaked in snow, a lady on skis in Cortina doing a stem
Christiana, the Swiss Alps full of cows, Tyroleans playing their long horns, Munichers swigging tankards of beer, Scottish men with hairy
legs and red cheeks puffing bagpipes, airplanes flying the skies, ships sailing the seas, Emilio Comici climbing mountains, the Lake Garda
of every German’s dreams...
Artists were no exception, and like maiden aunts, would send us pictures of newborn babies, absurd cards from some kitschy restaurant,
overflowing soccer stadiums, very avant-garde postcards with very old-guard subjects.
Some artists not encumbered by modesty would send their own portraits or one of their works as a memento, lest we need reminding.
Then came the Internet, the web, Facebook, Twitter, and everything changed. The world is different now, maybe no worse, maybe no better,
but the postcards have stopped coming.
And so we’ve gathered together those cherished old pictures and put them in a little book for posterity, presenting them in May 2013 at
the New York gallery of our friend Mieko Meguro: one of those old-fashioned people who every so often will still fire off a postcard...
Opening reception Friday, May 10th, 6-9:30pm
3A Gallery
New York USA
179 Canal Street, 10013 1-212-219-7523 www.3agallery.com
mieko3agallery@gmail.com
Gallery hour: Thursday, Friday 2-5pm and by appointment
Admission free