In 2020, most of us were deprived of tangible human contact, museum and gallery visits, and the opportunity to look at art in real life. Though that is slowly changing with the mass vaccination movement, there are still a lot of interactions that we feel like we have been/are missing out on. Cue in the mail art project M.M.S. (Much. More. Shit.) by Creator Projects.

Mail art has been on the rise during the pandemic, because humans all over the world were trying to find ways to connect to one another. In the 1950s, the New York–based artist Ray Johnson pioneered this form of expression known as “mail art,” which, at the time, was quite novel. The idea was that artists could distribute their work privately, through the postal service instead of through galleries and other exclusive institutions—making art accessible and available to a wider audience. Now, mail art seems to be witnessing a renaissance, and we’re quite excited about it.

M.M.S. is a unique art project offering everyone (and we mean everyone!) the opportunity to collect artworks by twelve of the greatest artists of our time: Alexander Tovborg, Alicja Kwade, Daniel Buren, Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, Jenny Holzer, Jeppe Hein, Katharina Grosse, Martin Creed, Monster Chetwynd, Nico Vascellari, Tania Bruguera and Tosh Basco (FKA Boychild). All twelve artworks are made to fit into a specially customized design box, and the artworks span all possible media from sound, performance, sculpture and installation, among others. The box is sold for €200 EUR (~$235 USD) with a new edition artwork by each of the artists. This is literally a once in a lifetime chance to own artwork by the most exciting artists of our time for under $300.

Much. More. Shit. is a tribute to S.M.S. (the acronym for Shit.Must.Stop.), a mail art project that was initiated in 1968 by two NYC-based artists and dealers, William Copley and Dimitri Petrov. It held the same premise: making a box with different artworks shipped to people’s homes via the postal service. S.M.S. was made to criticize the crazy prices of art in the 1960s art market, when “too much shit was produced for too few people.”

Creator Projects—a team of curators, consultants and project managers who create visible changes of high quality in institutions—created M.M.S to combat the exclusivity of art and to create new tactile experiences for people who may still be in confinement. >The box-sized portfolio of 12 artworks is created in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. The pre-sale has ended but more units are expected to be released in the future and fulfilled pre-orders are expected to ship in May 2021. The second edition will be published in 2022.

Photo via Creator Projects/Roth, Dieter (1930-1998): Cards Intended to Accompany Chocolate Bar, from S.M.S. No. 6, 1968