David Stanley Aponte: Subreal Alchemy : Subreal Alchemy ::: Outgoing mail art ::: Part I

Artists have been sending out art through the the postal systems nearly as long as the postal stamp. Some early art would be seen sent out by artists to friends going back to the 19th century but you start seeing artists drawing more frequently on postcards and sending them out post World War 1. The idea of mail art really becomes more of a medium by the Fluxus movement with artists such as Joseph Beuys and later one of the artists who really pushed the the idea was Ray Johnson.

Often art has been sent out through penpaling and this is the way David Stanley Aponte started to do mail art at a young age as a child in Pennsylvania sending art to penpals in England, Australia, Kazakhstan and within the United States. By 2001 David was sending postcard and mail art to 100's of people in over 20 countries and in 2009 joined IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists) and David started to archive the mail sent to him through a filing system in art archives kept in his studio.

You will note that each piece below has "Sub-" and then a number after that. The "Sub-" is short for "subreal" a aspect of looking at art based on "Manifesto from the Sub-" written by Dr. Malcolm K. & Dr. N. O. Pibbles esq in 2005. The sub- also becomes a way that David has catalogued a group of work done from the year 2006 to the present being inspired by the "MERZ" pieces done by artist Kurt Schwitters. From the year 2006 through 2016 David has done 10,000 "sub-" pieces where the catalog system resets at 0 and starts again producing another 10,000. In the 2nd series of "sub-" pieces David as of 11.September.2017 is currently at "Sub- #2161 and there are plans after reaching the number 10,000 for the 2nd time to do a 3rd series. By the end of the 3rd series there will be 30,000 sub pieces 3 sharing each number making a randomization of a tryptic which in some way using quantum connections of things in the universe will either be greatly relevant to each other, absurdly relevant or perhaps not remotely relevant at first glance at all. Some of the "sub-" series can be mail art as you see below done on post cards which is the most common and greatly number of pieces, or the sub- pieces can be poetry, videos, sculptures, paintings, documented performance art or titles of music. Many of the pieces will be lost in time or even lost in the mail, destroyed or never find each other thrown to the 4 corners of the globe but by the end of the 3rd series there will have been made 3 pieces that share the same number no matter what the fate of each piece is.

The subreal looks at under currents of reality and art following the spirits of, the absurd, pataphysics, dada, fluxus and the situationist international. There has been subreal movements happening along side the Philadelphia and American groups in Eastern Europe, Brazil and Antarctica as well as many other satellite spaces around the world.

-Collective Brand Movement Studio, 13.September.2017