Destination & Destiny: Postcards as Emblems of Contemporary Art

The reception of art without the postcard is inconceivable, whether one thinks of the art postcards that museums offer for sale, invitation postcards from galleries, or postcard editions by artists. Less commonly addressed is the fact that artists developed projects dealing with postcards that reveal a considered position on the art context.

The present book focuses on artists’ postcard projects since the early 1960s, especially those of On Kawara, Lawrence Weiner, Susan Hiller, Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Asher, and Mathilde ter Heijne. In each of these projects, one can observe a self-institutionalization of an artistic practice and at the same time an impetus to reflect on it together with a virtual emblemizing of contemporaneity.