The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW announces the premiere of Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolfe’s collective art campaign, Postcards for Democracy.
The resulting gallery exhibition is expansive, immersive and participatory, but the concept continues to be quite simple: Create and mail your postcard design to 8760 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90069 to become part of this art demonstration and in doing so support USPS and democracy in the process.
Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolfe. photo by Ross Harris
Artistic visionaries Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolfe – who share a love of tangible art-forms, in and amongst their futuristic explorations – joined forces to create Postcards for Democracy, a collective art campaign in support of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and its essential role in our elections.
The pair have received thousands of cards to date covering themes such as Covid, democracy, capitalism, the environment, social injustice, science and even insomnia. Together these postcards (like the exhibition itself) form something of a time capsule – reflecting our collective experience personally, socially, societally, politically and environmentally – while the archive expands with ongoing contributions.
Now through August, the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery will collaborate with the artists to present a site-specific installation: the first public showing of Postcards for Democracy. Both Mothersbaugh and Wolfe have strong ties with Rauschenberg’s work and ethos, Mothersbaugh in his adoption of pop imagery and early experimentation with industrial printing techniques (including cyanotype) and Wolfe due to her reboot of the Rauschenberg founded E.A.T. program (Experiments in Art and Technology) of the ‘60s with her Raw Space project.
As a young art student at Kent State University, Mothersbaugh first started making postcard art in the early 1970s and exchanging work with known and unknown artists alike. Through these exchanges, he realized that he was creating an image bank and a lyric collection that served as a basis of inspiration that he would later use in the creation of his seminal art-rock band, DEVO.
Singer-songwriter Beatie Wolfe is an artist who has beamed her music into space, been appointed a U.N. Women role model for innovation, and held an acclaimed solo exhibition of her world first album designs at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The exhibit opened May 15 and runs through Aug. 8.
The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery is located on the campus of Florida SouthWestern College, 8099 College Parkway, Fort Myers. For more info, visit www.rauschenberggallery.com or call 239-489-9313.
