Going Postal: Mailing Label Street Art

Postal stickers have long been a preferred substrate used by street artists to get up. Of course, because stickers from the US Postal Service, UPS, DHL and FedEx are so readily available, most of these stickers get lost in the fray, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

That’s where graffiti photography legend Martha Cooper comes in. Shooting the origins of hip-hop and graffiti cultures since the late 1970s in New York City, and later all over the world, Cooper’s well-trained eyes know how to recognize deft sticker art. Here then is a collection of more than 200 photographs of some of Cooper’s favorite handmade postal stickers from around the world, done by some of the scene’s better-known artists and the anonymous.

Cooper has compiled a collection of photographs shot in numerous cities, including New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tokyo, Berlin and Amsterdam, featuring postal-sticker art created by FAUST, STAIN, C.DAMAGE, GET2, COSBE and many more.

Going Postal documents how an old-school method has burgeoned into another rich facet of the world’s graffiti cultures.