this is a project that I started working
on 1996 I was going around to art
galleries with my artist portfolio a
book with images of my work in hoping to
landing an exhibition somewhere and
there was this one gallery owner and he
was a really good one and he’s a really
great one these days he took his time
and sat down with me and and looked at
my work and when he was done he said
something like you know you should try
to get some more life experience you
should you should live a little you know
travel the world and then come back and
show me what you’ve done and I really
didn’t know what to do with that I felt
both like tapped on the head and
belittled in one way and what do you
mean
live a little and travel the world that
costs a lot of money and I could barely
pay my studio rent at that time so then
the idea of somebody that could travel
the world in my place was born a
fictitious vagabond or a sort of an
alter-ego and I named him Anders L or a
Granberg many my art projects start on a
very large scale and so did this one I
decided to have my alter ego visit every
country on the planet or at least the
United Nation main member states to have
some kind of framework and in order to
accomplish this I used my homemade
postcards so this is how I went about
when I started the project 20 years ago
I was really into the Swedish author
Stuart at ahlstrom I don’t know if
you’re familiar with him but he he
writes books with really colorful
characters with that are just drenched
with complete madness he would be the
equivalent to a hundred Tom’s and I
would think
the American author and inspired by the
way he painted his characters portraits
I wanted to have my alter ego be as
unpredictable and as eclectic so I
started to make all these cards that I
made look and feel as different as
possible as unpredictable as possible
but they all have one thing in common
that’s the message on the front I’ll
tell you a percent which means something
like doing it fine or everything is
going well and on the back a greeting
from this a Granberg so first I made a
series of four postcards then I
collected contact information for
potential collaborators in all the
different countries of the world but
first I started out with the ones that
had some kind of Swedish connection like
embassies consulates and trade champions
and such and also institutions with some
kind of artistic agenda or the threshold
to help out with an art project would be
not that high but that search quickly
expanded to neighboring countries and
pretty much the rest of the world and
then I started to send out this message
with the subject requests for assistance
in art project dear sir/madam
my name is Anders Granberg and I’m
living in the city of Stockholm Sweden
being an artist I’m active in the field
of Contemporary Arts I’m now looking for
a person living in your country who
could assist me in an art project which
I am now working on and I found your
address online the kind of assistance
required is mailing for postcards
intended for various museums art
galleries and newspapers in Sweden the
postcards or handmade by myself and
delivered by mail and an envelope to the
person who will be kind enough to help
me all the postcards will be completed
with a greeting message my name and the
name of the recipients the only thing
required is providing stamps
putting the cards in a mailbox I would
of course reimburse snap expenses if you
were anyone else will be kind enough to
help me with my art project I will
provide a detailed project description
and even if you’re not able to help me I
would greatly appreciate a response to
this melt so I can find another contact
for your country best regards from
Sweden I have sent this message out
thousands and thousands of times through
fax email and Facebook and in the
beginning the fax was the most reliable
way to get in touch with people in
strange countries and after a couple of
years the email worked really well you
could actually find contact information
to highly-ranked government officials
and even presidents straight on their
websites so I believe the president of
now rule which then had the email
address president at Naru gov assisted
me in mailing cards but this was before
spam was born or before I started
spamming I guess now their Facebook
arrived and that was a goldmine a lot of
countries had their own groups and many
people from that specific country were
members of that group and nobody had
locked profiles or a personal profiles
or if that was even invented I don’t
know but funny enough the good ol fax
was towards the end the most the best
way to get in touch with people so I’ve
sent that message many many times and
once in a while I received a positive
answer like this one from Algeria or
this one from Hell Ollie in Burma
Myanmar but sometimes I did get some
negative answers but most of the times I
didn’t get an answer at all just to make
sure but it’s a positive answers like
this
from Lisa and Trinidad but when and if I
did receive a positive answer from
somebody willing to help me with my
project I take my four postcards and on
two of them
I write the address to museums to
galleries or art critics or people in
places that I wanted to recognize my
work and the other two I write my own
address and these cards don’t work as
sort of verification cards then I simply
put the cards in an envelope and I send
them off to my collaborator and let’s
say New Zealand and when the cards are
right there all they have to do is open
an envelope and put stamps on the cards
and let the international mail service
do what it does so when and if these
cards find their way back to me the
other cards the other recipients have
received those cards probably as well
and this greeting from all these
different countries from this Angry Bird
I over the years sent many manic hearts
to the same people so that got greetings
from all over the globe during this
period of 20 years and since my language
skills are limited to Swedish and
English there’s been quite a few
misunderstandings over the years this is
not an easy project to explain even in
my own language Swedish but there’s so
many incredibly kind people out there
too
that actually take the time to read this
odd request and answer it you know give
me their address accept these cards go
buy stamps and mail these cards it’s
really incredible what people do for
art’s sake but there is being gaps in
the communication like in this case my
collaborators took my cards and put them
in individual envelopes and then wrote
the address on that envelope
which sort of spoils the illusion of me
actually send out the cards from that
country since it wasn’t my handwriting
that got the cards back to Sweden well
in this case this kind person sent all
the cards back to me in the same
envelope or this happened quite a few
times as well they thanked me for my
strange-looking postcards and made their
own or went out and bought their own so
two stories about two different
countries and the first one North Korea
this was one of the countries that I
initially thought would be the most
difficult one to have cards centrum but
I quickly made contact with a mr. Pike
xual who sorry about that pronunciation
and he was engaged in something called
this Sweden Korea Friendship Society and
I have never ever found any info about
that organization online or anywhere
else for that matter
but I sent in the cards and he sent them
back so that’s fine and we kept in touch
through email of it after that and all
of a sudden our conversation was
hijacked by something called silly bank
or silly Bank and that is one of the two
internet providers in North Korea and
they wanted me to open a communication
account if I wanted to keep touch with
this citizen Pike for the simple fee of
50 euros and then I had to pay zero
point 1 euro per character so that was
the end of that conversation and then we
have the fantastic Paradis island of
Antigua I got in touch with a hotel
owner named Andrew he was willing to
help so I sent in the cards and he sent
them back and he then asked me if if I
could help him out by translating his
website to Swedish to attract or to
communicate with Swedish tourists and I
said fine I can do that that was an easy
thing to do so I did that and he was
very grateful and he broke me and said
you know if you ever come here you can
stay for free
and it’s probably one of those things
you say but don’t really mean but I had
to take a chance so I went there with my
I took my wife Erica and it’s a great
hotel the coconut hotel I highly
recommend it
each card in my complete collection of
cards really have a neat story but
there’s not time enough to tell them all
here today but as I said in the
beginning my absolute ambition from the
beginning was to have cards or have my
alter-ego visit every country on the
planet but as the project proceeded I
realized that that was not going to be
possible because some countries are in
such poor condition that they don’t even
have a functioning mail system and a
couple of the newer countries don’t have
a another system and now these gaps in
the complete collection of cards really
make some kind of impact makes you think
of the condition of that country I think
is really interesting so it’s quite
valuable the collection and during this
entire project I have stayed anonymous
these cards have become collectors items
and they’ve been exhibited in museums
and art critics have written articles
about them and I’ve been tracked down a
couple of times but I’ve denied any
involvement the project but a couple of
years ago I sort of came out at the
mailbox and and all the the complete
collection or the whole project is now
on display at the Postal Museum in Old
Town gamla stan’ in stockholm to the end
of the year and since the beginning I’ve
saved every piece of Correspondence I’ve
saved every email every fax every letter
for 20 years and all that now works as
sort of a wall paper throughout the
exhibit and there’s quite a bit of fun
reading there actually some polite and
answers and some implied answers
and looking back at the conversation I
had with the gallery owner 20 years ago
I think I’ll have to admit that he did
have a point or maybe two even though I
didn’t myself go to all these places and
do all this traveling it did make my
life richer and I did give me some life
experience and perhaps the level of
interesting for my art became slightly
higher so thank you for listening
you
on 1996 I was going around to art
galleries with my artist portfolio a
book with images of my work in hoping to
landing an exhibition somewhere and
there was this one gallery owner and he
was a really good one and he’s a really
great one these days he took his time
and sat down with me and and looked at
my work and when he was done he said
something like you know you should try
to get some more life experience you
should you should live a little you know
travel the world and then come back and
show me what you’ve done and I really
didn’t know what to do with that I felt
both like tapped on the head and
belittled in one way and what do you
mean
live a little and travel the world that
costs a lot of money and I could barely
pay my studio rent at that time so then
the idea of somebody that could travel
the world in my place was born a
fictitious vagabond or a sort of an
alter-ego and I named him Anders L or a
Granberg many my art projects start on a
very large scale and so did this one I
decided to have my alter ego visit every
country on the planet or at least the
United Nation main member states to have
some kind of framework and in order to
accomplish this I used my homemade
postcards so this is how I went about
when I started the project 20 years ago
I was really into the Swedish author
Stuart at ahlstrom I don’t know if
you’re familiar with him but he he
writes books with really colorful
characters with that are just drenched
with complete madness he would be the
equivalent to a hundred Tom’s and I
would think
the American author and inspired by the
way he painted his characters portraits
I wanted to have my alter ego be as
unpredictable and as eclectic so I
started to make all these cards that I
made look and feel as different as
possible as unpredictable as possible
but they all have one thing in common
that’s the message on the front I’ll
tell you a percent which means something
like doing it fine or everything is
going well and on the back a greeting
from this a Granberg so first I made a
series of four postcards then I
collected contact information for
potential collaborators in all the
different countries of the world but
first I started out with the ones that
had some kind of Swedish connection like
embassies consulates and trade champions
and such and also institutions with some
kind of artistic agenda or the threshold
to help out with an art project would be
not that high but that search quickly
expanded to neighboring countries and
pretty much the rest of the world and
then I started to send out this message
with the subject requests for assistance
in art project dear sir/madam
my name is Anders Granberg and I’m
living in the city of Stockholm Sweden
being an artist I’m active in the field
of Contemporary Arts I’m now looking for
a person living in your country who
could assist me in an art project which
I am now working on and I found your
address online the kind of assistance
required is mailing for postcards
intended for various museums art
galleries and newspapers in Sweden the
postcards or handmade by myself and
delivered by mail and an envelope to the
person who will be kind enough to help
me all the postcards will be completed
with a greeting message my name and the
name of the recipients the only thing
required is providing stamps
putting the cards in a mailbox I would
of course reimburse snap expenses if you
were anyone else will be kind enough to
help me with my art project I will
provide a detailed project description
and even if you’re not able to help me I
would greatly appreciate a response to
this melt so I can find another contact
for your country best regards from
Sweden I have sent this message out
thousands and thousands of times through
fax email and Facebook and in the
beginning the fax was the most reliable
way to get in touch with people in
strange countries and after a couple of
years the email worked really well you
could actually find contact information
to highly-ranked government officials
and even presidents straight on their
websites so I believe the president of
now rule which then had the email
address president at Naru gov assisted
me in mailing cards but this was before
spam was born or before I started
spamming I guess now their Facebook
arrived and that was a goldmine a lot of
countries had their own groups and many
people from that specific country were
members of that group and nobody had
locked profiles or a personal profiles
or if that was even invented I don’t
know but funny enough the good ol fax
was towards the end the most the best
way to get in touch with people so I’ve
sent that message many many times and
once in a while I received a positive
answer like this one from Algeria or
this one from Hell Ollie in Burma
Myanmar but sometimes I did get some
negative answers but most of the times I
didn’t get an answer at all just to make
sure but it’s a positive answers like
this
from Lisa and Trinidad but when and if I
did receive a positive answer from
somebody willing to help me with my
project I take my four postcards and on
two of them
I write the address to museums to
galleries or art critics or people in
places that I wanted to recognize my
work and the other two I write my own
address and these cards don’t work as
sort of verification cards then I simply
put the cards in an envelope and I send
them off to my collaborator and let’s
say New Zealand and when the cards are
right there all they have to do is open
an envelope and put stamps on the cards
and let the international mail service
do what it does so when and if these
cards find their way back to me the
other cards the other recipients have
received those cards probably as well
and this greeting from all these
different countries from this Angry Bird
I over the years sent many manic hearts
to the same people so that got greetings
from all over the globe during this
period of 20 years and since my language
skills are limited to Swedish and
English there’s been quite a few
misunderstandings over the years this is
not an easy project to explain even in
my own language Swedish but there’s so
many incredibly kind people out there
too
that actually take the time to read this
odd request and answer it you know give
me their address accept these cards go
buy stamps and mail these cards it’s
really incredible what people do for
art’s sake but there is being gaps in
the communication like in this case my
collaborators took my cards and put them
in individual envelopes and then wrote
the address on that envelope
which sort of spoils the illusion of me
actually send out the cards from that
country since it wasn’t my handwriting
that got the cards back to Sweden well
in this case this kind person sent all
the cards back to me in the same
envelope or this happened quite a few
times as well they thanked me for my
strange-looking postcards and made their
own or went out and bought their own so
two stories about two different
countries and the first one North Korea
this was one of the countries that I
initially thought would be the most
difficult one to have cards centrum but
I quickly made contact with a mr. Pike
xual who sorry about that pronunciation
and he was engaged in something called
this Sweden Korea Friendship Society and
I have never ever found any info about
that organization online or anywhere
else for that matter
but I sent in the cards and he sent them
back so that’s fine and we kept in touch
through email of it after that and all
of a sudden our conversation was
hijacked by something called silly bank
or silly Bank and that is one of the two
internet providers in North Korea and
they wanted me to open a communication
account if I wanted to keep touch with
this citizen Pike for the simple fee of
50 euros and then I had to pay zero
point 1 euro per character so that was
the end of that conversation and then we
have the fantastic Paradis island of
Antigua I got in touch with a hotel
owner named Andrew he was willing to
help so I sent in the cards and he sent
them back and he then asked me if if I
could help him out by translating his
website to Swedish to attract or to
communicate with Swedish tourists and I
said fine I can do that that was an easy
thing to do so I did that and he was
very grateful and he broke me and said
you know if you ever come here you can
stay for free
and it’s probably one of those things
you say but don’t really mean but I had
to take a chance so I went there with my
I took my wife Erica and it’s a great
hotel the coconut hotel I highly
recommend it
each card in my complete collection of
cards really have a neat story but
there’s not time enough to tell them all
here today but as I said in the
beginning my absolute ambition from the
beginning was to have cards or have my
alter-ego visit every country on the
planet but as the project proceeded I
realized that that was not going to be
possible because some countries are in
such poor condition that they don’t even
have a functioning mail system and a
couple of the newer countries don’t have
a another system and now these gaps in
the complete collection of cards really
make some kind of impact makes you think
of the condition of that country I think
is really interesting so it’s quite
valuable the collection and during this
entire project I have stayed anonymous
these cards have become collectors items
and they’ve been exhibited in museums
and art critics have written articles
about them and I’ve been tracked down a
couple of times but I’ve denied any
involvement the project but a couple of
years ago I sort of came out at the
mailbox and and all the the complete
collection or the whole project is now
on display at the Postal Museum in Old
Town gamla stan’ in stockholm to the end
of the year and since the beginning I’ve
saved every piece of Correspondence I’ve
saved every email every fax every letter
for 20 years and all that now works as
sort of a wall paper throughout the
exhibit and there’s quite a bit of fun
reading there actually some polite and
answers and some implied answers
and looking back at the conversation I
had with the gallery owner 20 years ago
I think I’ll have to admit that he did
have a point or maybe two even though I
didn’t myself go to all these places and
do all this traveling it did make my
life richer and I did give me some life
experience and perhaps the level of
interesting for my art became slightly
higher so thank you for listening
you
Please follow and like us: