Bethnal Green PC’s

A show has just opened at X Marks the Bökship in Bethnal Green from 23 Jan to 1 March. Titled The Postcard is a Public Work of Art, it exhibits new artists’ postcards by 60 different British-based artists, ranging from the well-known like Susan Hiller, Jonathan Monk, Peter Kennard, Tim Head, etc. to bright younger artists such as Ruth Ewan, Andy Parker and Proctor. In various media and techniques, they all engage with the form and concept of the standard commercial postcard.

Jacky Fleming
Ladmags  [c.2006] (featured image at top)
From an unlimited edition, self-published and marketed, unique inscription in ink by author on reverse
Jacky Fleming’s earliest postcards, of the late 1980s, were published by Leeds Postcards, although from 2000 she has been her own publisher. In November 2013 she wrote on the reverse of this card: ‘I drew this image when ladmags were contaminating every public space, normalising contempt for women with their unapologetically ugly misogyny.’ Fleming’s first collection of drawings Be A Bloody Train Driverwas published by Penguin in 1991 and her solo exhibitions include Never Give Up at the Bradford Playhouse in 2009.

Juliet Haysom

After “Nude 1”, Jean Meziere, 1985 [2013]

Unique appropriated postcard published by artist

This postcard collage is constructed from double-sourced images, on the front a photo by Jean Meziere of 1985 taken from Echoes: A Vision of the American Southwest, and on the reverse is the back of a found 1960s postcard. Juliet Haysom writes: ‘The card is part of an ongoing investigation into the representation of women in landscape. While much of this has taken the form of drawings made after fashion photography, I’m also interested in how the postcard format represents “place” with its particular combination of text and photographic image.’