english
Foundation Berardelli’s Mail Art archive was born in 2019 thanks to a big donation by the artist Fierens Luc. In addition to this reception, we added also all the already existing part in the Berardelli collection.
The archive has been prepared for online consultation by combining simplicity and specificity. For each archived material we provide: the cataloging, a gallery of images for each content and the possibility to do cross-searches. The archiving was organized into categories and subcategories designed first according to a criterion of cultural relevance and then usability: therefore some isolated categories will be found, although they can be linked to other items, to highlight their importance within the universe of Mail Art. The same categories will have descriptive fields so that they can provide a general smattering on certain topics. One of the most interesting parts for scholars and enthusiasts, as well as for archive managers, is the possibility to carry out advanced and filtered searches thus personalizing the user experience in the database — with this tool it is possible to isolate, for example: all the works of an artist, or all the stamps of 1984, and so on.
The part dedicated to the Network, the soul of Mail Art, and to networkers will provide in-depth biographies, an essential bibliography and the artist’s contacts. At first, many of these biographical pages will come directly from the appendix of Lutz Wohlrab, manager of the Mail Artists Index website — a rare and essential tool: https://mailartists.wordpress.com — and then evolve into a more autonomous dimension in the time.
The News section will collect all information about new events, new exhibitions or festivals dedicated to Mail Art, on the other hand the Links section will offer links to other companies operating in the sector and to new ideas: such as texts, information, articles.