Michael Hernandez de Luna has been designing phony stamps and sticking them on envelopes for more than 20 years. He’s a satirist and provocateur who intentionally courts conflict. Because stamps are legal currency, using one’s own designs could be construed as fraud—but Hernandez de Luna’s creations aren’t counterfeit, so he has never been arrested or prosecuted. And after all, who’s really being deceived? Hernandez de Luna’s unwitting collaborators, the United States Postal Service employees who are in charge of canceling stamps, could be viewed as the butt of the joke. Yet they are agents, however inept, of the public, so everyone is in some way implicated—we’re all getting fooled. By involving a colossal bureaucracy like the USPS, Hernandez de Luna deepens his critique of the institutions that govern society.
The USPS has already announced that it will change the way letters are processed, and perhaps stamps will disappear. But Hernandez de Luna’s works will always have inherent value, even when stamps cease to be U.S. legal tender. And there’s little doubt that he’ll find some new way to stick it to the powers that be. v
