The world exists to be put on a postcard
artists' postcards from 1960 to now

Past exhibition

7 February – 4 August 2019

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Artists have subverted the common postcard for decades.


While the artists' postcard began as a child of the Conceptual and Fluxus movements of the 1960s, it quickly broadened as an artistic medium to highlight political and social issues, such as feminism, anti-war protest and the fight against AIDS.

In the British Museum's first major display of artists' postcards, visitors discovered both the politics and playfulness of this unique collection of 300 postcards gifted to the British Museum by the artists' postcard expert Jeremy Cooper - ranging from feminist artists such as Lynda Benglis and Hannah Wilke, to Yoko Ono and John Lennon's anti-Vietnam War is Over postcard and the original invitation to Andy Warhol's Holy Cow! Silver Clouds!! Holy Cow! exhibition.

Other exhibitions