Postcards from an artist

Associated media

Jeremy Cooper’s ‘Postcard Narratives’ exhibition opens this week, 4–27 April, at ROOM Artspace, 30 Manchester Street, London W1U 7LQ (Wednesday-Saturday, 12 noon-6p.m.).

Jeremy Cooper’s large collection of artists’ postcards, that is, postcards as artistic expression, not postcard-size art or postcards of art, has been accepted as a promised gift by the British Museum and scheduled for a significant exhibition in the Department of Prints and Drawings in 2018. ‘Postcard Narratives’ is his first London exhibition supported by artist-friends he has invited to join him, including Gavin Turk, Susan Hiller and Tracey Emin, who were important to Cooper in its initial development.

Male Artists, 2011, 56 portrait postcards mounted on card, represents a small sum of unsent, stored postcards, and illustrates his methodical cataloguing, filing and storing works in diverse groups. Cooper has included memories of growing up: at Orley Farm prep school, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, in Mother’s Boys, 1993; and from his public school years at Harrow, where his father was an assistant Master, in Leavers. 1991

His friendship since the late 1980s with the Young British Artists – who rose to prominence in the early 1990s – is defined here. It could be summed up in Gavin’s Sheep, 1999. Cooper helped Turk organize the ‘Live Stock Market’ arts event in Shoreditch, during the summer of 1997, with hundreds of artists taking part and tens of thousands of visitors attending. ‘Sheep’ notes created by Turk were local currency printed for the event, and accepted at all stalls and in local pubs and shops.

Contributions to this exhibition by Emin, Hiller, Turk, Julie Cockburn, Abigail Lane and Sarah Staton; Daniel Eatock, Georgie Hopton and Sara McKillop, Frances Richardson, and young art graduates Cristina Garrido and Rebecca Loweth, complement Cooper’s own remarkable collection.

Rosalind Ormiston, London

Exhibition catalogue Postcard Narratives (Room Books 2103) ISBN: 978-0-9549915-5-5

Jeremy Cooper’s book Artists’ Postcards: A Compendium (Reaktion Books, 2012) is reviewed in Cassone, October 2012 edition.

Cassone’s March 2012 edition includes an interview with Jeremy Cooper ‘Artists at work - the yBas at 50’.