‘The Elephant in the Room’: Exhibition by Julius T. Chase ft. Ted Träger
About this activity.
From October 1 to October 31, 2026, Ted Träger, a mail art artist from California, is exhibiting a mail art piece titled ‘The Elephant in the Room’ at Window Gallery ‘De Prachtvink’ near the Vinkhuizen shopping center, Platinalaan 505a, 9743 GZ Groningen.
‘The Elephant in the Room’ is a mail art piece measuring 10 x 15 cm, created in 2020. The front features a postcard showing a simply colored paper cutout of an elephant. On the back, Träger has applied postage stamps, frottage, textures, and a typed text explaining the elephant's history. The artist’s great-uncle, Julius T. Chase, created this image of the pachyderm as a child in the 1920s. He cut out the silhouette and then colored it with pencils. The cutout was mounted on white cardstock, around which the young artist also drew a pencil line. Over the course of roughly a century, part of the trunk has been lost.
Träger sent the card in November 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis—a time period when there were quite a few ‘elephants in the room’. The expression ‘the elephant in the room’ likely dates back to the 19th century. It became a common idiom in the United States during the 1980s, and the translated phrase gained popularity in the Netherlands starting in the 1990s. In the art world, the most famous ‘elephant in the room’ is Banksy’s 2006 exhibition ‘Barely Legal’, which featured a live Indian elephant, painted with wall paper patterns, displayed inside a room, serving more or less as a protest against global poverty.
Ted Träger (1985) is a mail art artist from Long Beach, California. He has been active in the international mail art scene since around 2015. Mail art as an art form has existed since the 1960s; artists around the world send each other mail that is often surreal or enigmatic. Since 2010, mail art has faced challenges due to soaring global postage costs and restrictions imposed by postal services regarding the size and content of mail. Träger publishes his work through well-known networks such as Braincell and IUOMA.
The window gallery is an exhibition space that can only be viewed and admired from the outside, though it is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The gallery remains illuminated until 11:00 PM.
A new artwork by a different artist is exhibited each month.
Raamgalerie De Prachtvink.
Raamgalerie De Prachtvink is een 24-uurs galerie aan Platinalaan 505a bij Winkelcentrum Vinkhuizen. De galerie heeft als specialiteit internationale mail art.
Location.
Raamgalerie De Prachtvink
Platinalaan 505
9743GZ Groningen
tel 050-2302991
prachtvink.blogspot.com/