Postal Art Fans Visiting Next Month Frieze New York (May 17-21) at The Shed go for a treat: the fair will feature a special commission from the New York-based concept artist Jessica Vaughn based on his three-year exploration of the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Vaughn is the winner of the inaugural Frieze Artadia Prize, which recognizes the work of a New York-based artist who has previously received an award from Artadia, a non-profit organization that provides grants to artists in cities across the United States, from Boston to San Francisco. Winners of the new prize will receive support to create a new order to be showcased during Frieze New York.
Jessica Vaughn, The Internet of Things2020-23 Courtesy of the artist
Vaughn’s commission will consist of images from his three-year mail art project, The Internet of Things (2020-23). For the project, the artist sent letters to sites across the United States affiliated with commerce, violence, or recreation, from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to offices in Silicon Valley and the gated community of Florida where teenager Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012. Vaughn deliberately mislabeled each envelope. so that it would eventually be returned to him, showing the various USPS marks, stamps, and notes.
“I was interested in all of these sites which, taken together, constitute a conceptual landscape that reorients the way American life is represented, experienced and structured,” Vaughn said in a statement. She adds that by printing images of the exterior and interior of the envelopes onto canvas and linen, she sees the project as a “revision of landscape painting traditions.”
Vaughn’s proposal was selected by award jurors Sohrab Mohebbi, director of the SculptureCenter, and Franklin Sirmans, director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Jessica Vaughn, The Internet of Things2020-23 Courtesy of the artist
“We are thrilled to shine a light on Jessica Vaughn and her incisive questioning of institutional labor politics – in this case, the United States Postal Service – that will culminate in this large-scale commission, which is such an appropriate platform for the public to experience and reflect on,” Artadia executive director Carolyn Ramo said in a statement.
The exhibition of Vaughn’s work at Frieze New York will coincide with the final days of his first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, I 🖤 CUSTOMERS (until May 21), at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf. This exhibition features new and recent works that, typical of the artist’s practice, draw viewers’ attention to the often overlooked processes and material traces of labor, from the information and service sectors to industrial manufacturing. .
These awards have long been the hallmark of various Frieze fairs. For example, at Frieze Los Angeles in February, Mexican-American artist Narsiso Martinez won the $25,000 Frieze Impact Prize and received a solo booth at the fair. Last October, Abbas Zahedi won the Frieze Artist Award and presented a project on the grounds of Regent’s Park during Frieze London.
