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Pages from the documents of
The Museum of Museums,
Arentshuis, Bruges, Belgium, 2009

Intorductory Narrative:

The Museum of Museums (M.O.M.) is one of the long-term projects in the history of international mail art. Its originator, Johan van Geluwe (Waregem, 8 May 1929 – Waregem, 28 January 2020), was a Belgian architect, "ARTchitect," and networker who spent decades building an imaginary institution through the postal medium. Since the 1970s, Van Geluwe systematically invited museum directors, curators, artists, and mail art network participants worldwide to send him two identical postcards showing the exterior or interior of their local museum, or its most important exhibit — one to be stamped, signed, and decorated with official museum identification materials (tickets, labels, stamps), the other to be sent separately along with any additional postcards or photographs of notable exhibits. The resulting accumulation of hundreds of museum postcards from across the globe formed the core of M.O.M.'s permanent "collection."

Van Geluwe operated his practice under several interlinked fictitious-real institutional identities: A.R.T. (Art Recycling Terminal), M.A.O. (Multinational Art Office), and M.O.M. itself, of which he designated himself director-curator-archivist. The characteristic rubber stamp of The Museum of Museums — featuring the institution's name, his address in Waregem, and a stylized architectural motif — appeared on every outgoing mailing, functioning simultaneously as an artistic mark, an institutional seal, and a conceptual gesture. His project is a sustained critical commentary on the institution of the museum, the fetishization of official culture, and the bureaucratic apparatus that governs it. His materials — typewritten calls, rubber stamps, hand-addressed envelopes, glued tickets — are deliberately makeshift and anti-monumental, a polemical inversion of institutional gravitas.

Within the mail art network, Van Geluwe was recognized as a central figure in the tradition of artist-run fictitious institutions, alongside figures such as Leszek Przyjemski (Poland, b. 1942), whose Museum of Hysterics (founded 1968/1975) ran a parallel and resonant trajectory. The two artists were directly linked: Przyjemski paid explicit homage to Van Geluwe in a 2006 mailing that is preserved in the Artpool archive (Image 7), bearing the inscription "Leszek Przyjemski, Museum of Hysterics, Hommage to Johan van Geluwe. The Museum of Museums 01.01.2006," and distributed under the imprint of E.U.R.O.P.A. — European Utopian Recycled Organism for Profound Art, with an Artpool reception stamp visible on the reverse.

In 2012, Van Geluwe donated the entire Museum of Museums collection to the Stadsarchief (Municipal Archive) of Waregem, where it is now preserved.


Cover (recto) of the promotional postcard set, showing three installation views of The Museum of Museums exhibition alongside the Museum of Museums circular stamp/logo (Jan Bouckaertstr. 8, BE-8790 Waregem, Flanders). The photographs document a dense installation of museum postcards arranged in curved rows and along warmly lit gallery walls, with display cases containing three-dimensional objects.


Interior view spread (verso of Image 1), showing further installation views of The Museum of Museums — display rooms with framed artifacts, label texts, mirror-and-gear decorative elements, and tightly arranged objects on illuminated shelves — alongside a second impression of the Museum of Museums circular stamp.


Verso (address side) of four identical promotional postcards, each bearing the following text in Dutch (here translated): "Johan van Geluwe / The Museum of Museums 2009 / Arentshuis, Bruges / 22/01/2009–27/09/2009 // Johan van Geluwe is the imaginary Museum of Museums of Arentshuis. Jan van Eyck's mirror plays a critical role, surrounded by the traditional art-historical canon. The museum function is questioned and becomes an essential element in and around unique museum postcards, which are the shiny promise that Johan van Geluwe's decades-long cross-disciplinary correspondence is always on its way in this Museum of Museums." Published by Musea Brugge (BRU CGE). The recto of all four postcards is blank.


Call (typewritten, single sheet). The call bears the Museum of Museums circular stamp and is addressed by hand to "Dear Angela & Peter." It requests the sending of two identical A6 postcards (10.5 × 15 cm) showing an outside or inside view of a museum or its most important exhibit. Detailed, illustrated instructions specify: (1) the first postcard should bear any form of museum identification (official stamps, labels, tickets, stickers), the sender's signature and name, and the address of The Museum of Museums (Jan Bouckaertstraat 8, BE-8790 Waregem, Flanders, Belgium), with a postmark from the town of the museum; (2) the second card should be sent under separate cover, with any additional postcards or photographs of interesting exhibits. Signed: "Johan van Geluwe (curator – conservator), MOM the Museum of Museums." A postscript notes: "Put a glue stick in your pocket, you'll need it to stick the ticket on the postcard."


Press clipping. Editor's Choice column from an unidentified English-language publication, headlined "The Museum of Museums," reviewing the Arentshuis exhibition in Bruges (until 27 September 2009). The article provides a substantial profile of Van Geluwe and his practice.

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