MAIL ART ACTIVITIES AS ARTISTIC TACTICS: EWA PARTUM’S AND RUTH WOLF-REHFELDT’S INFRASTRUCTURES WITHIN THE MAIL ART NETWORK

Abstract

ABSTRACT______The article examines how Ewa Partum in Poland and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt in the GDR used the Mail Art network from the 1970s onward as an artistic tactic in the sense of Michel de Certeau. Focusing on Partum’s Galeria Adres as well as on both artists’ correspondence practices and Wolf-Rehfeldt’s typewriter graphics, the essay analyzes how they employed existing postal infrastructures to create alternative spaces of communication, exchange, and visibility beyond official art institutions. Their activities circumvented institutional and geopolitical restrictions while enabling transnational artistic connections across the Iron Curtain. The article argues that Mail Art functioned not only as a communication system but also as an experimental infrastructure through which both artists negotiated gendered roles, authorship, mobility, and participation within predominantly male neo-avant-garde networks.