POST CARDS

Martin Parr is the editor of boring post cards and boring post cards USA. Apart from collecting postcards he also has the worlds largest collection of Saddam Husein themed watches. He is the king of making the banal interesting and could be linked to every topic discussed this week but I am going to try my best not to do that.

Beyond the fact that your postman is able to read how Rachel thinks her camp counselor is hot, post cards are also easy to keep and cheap mementos.

A few examples of the preferred method of grandparents when it comes to showing they care:


Post card related art is hard to come by, there are artists who collect post cards but few well-known artist that work in the format. This spring I saw a show at the 201 Gallery here in Philadelphia at the Crane Arts Building that included the work of artist Johanna Inman. She photographs the back of old slides, pictures, and post cards with a large format camera and blows up the images to 28x32 inch prints.


The new topographic movement in photography closely resembles the bland and strait-on documentary style of many architectural post cards. Here are a few images from Ed Ruscha's 26 Gasoline Stations:

ED RUSCHA