"[A] star" — Cherwell's review of contemporary artist M. Freddy
On "Correspondence Club by M. Freddy: Responding to AI", an artwork exhibited at Christ Church, University of Oxford
Thank you to Emma Heagney at Cherwell for the kind words:
While the exhibition was student-run and featured the art of several postgraduates, it was nonetheless star-studded. M. Freddy, a Parsons School of Design graduate and featured speaker at MIT and the United Nations, explored the idea of art as a relationship through the concept of an envelope. Viewers were encouraged to open the letter, read its contents slowly, and reflect on how the fingerprints and subtle creases on the paper could not be recreated by AI.
About the artwork
Correspondence Club by M. Freddy: Responding to AI (2026) is an interactive artwork created specifically for the exhibition titled “Responding to AI”. Participants are invited to take the correspondence card out of the envelope, read it, and age it — feel free to get your fingerprints on it, leave coffee stains, smudge the drawing … Freddy will scan the piece again after the exhibition, which will add to the story of the artwork. The front of the card features a drawing of flowers with a stamp from the series that reads “M. F. R. Correspondence Club”. The back of the card includes a note: “My Airedale terrier Little Freddy loves to stop and smell the flowers. He picked these flowers for you while we were walking through a garden. I hope you like them. – M. Freddy”.
This artwork came about serendipitously. His on-going series Correspondence Club by M. Freddy is a subscription-based artwork where collectors receive a correspondence card each quarter. Each card features a handwritten letter and fresh flowers from his walks, interweaving nature into collectors’ everyday lives. The series was inspired by his time at the UN, where he underwent Core Diplomatic Training. One of the particularly memorable moments is the show-stopping red envelope from Carnegie Hall — Freddy’s invitation to the UN diplomats’ year-end event. The series shares this sense of occasion.
This series is available by commission
https://studio.mfreddy.com/correspondence-club
About M. Freddy
M. Freddy is a contemporary artist who explores the role of culture in socioeconomic change. He paints, photographs, and writes about subcultures — artists, musicians, chefs, and most recently, urban wildlife. His work captures their quiet brilliance, where alternative logics and visual vocabularies show fragments of a future underway. Fascinated by the way cultural objects gain significance, M. Freddy often experiments with how art is seen, acquired, and shared.
The artist alias of Marvin Cheung, M. Freddy is a former student of James Romberger, an artist in the East Village canon alongside Basquiat, Wojnarowicz, and McGinley. His work was recently featured by Lomography. He has given talks at prestigious organizations including MIT and the United Nations. He holds a BFA from the Parsons School of Design in New York, and an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He was also a Departmental Visiting Student at the University of Oxford.