Postmodern Postcard Projects Are Something to Write Home About

In his highly amusing 1971 manifesto on postcards, artist Tom Phillips breaks down the general categories of postcards, from “news from another planet” and “o châteaux, o saisons” to “pastoral/historical” and finally, “national cliché compendium,” as exemplified in a card featuring a “kilted bagpiper in the heather seen through thistles with inset of haggis.” Two new projects seize upon the power and enduring versatility of the postcard, even as the art of letter-writing is in its long-winded death throes.