The impact of Covid-19 on artists. Part 4: artistic responses to the coronavirus and the prescient zeitgeist

16/04/20

Part 4: artistic responses to the coronavirus and the prescient zeitgeist

In the fourth instalment of this five-part essay, comprising conversations with artists around the world, we look at the work artists have made in response to the coronavirus, and the prescient zeitgeist

Unsurprisingly, a lot of art is already beginning to be produced in direct response to the coronavirus. Anita Glesta (b1958, New York) began working on a new film piece, Corona Butterfly, even before New York City – or the rest of the world – was in its current state. In her work, the virus is depicted as an insect or bug that enters and flies through organs in the human body. “The butterfly isn’t beautiful or ugly,” she says, “but it is clearly a presence foreign to the body. It ends its journey in the lungs. I hope that with the juxtaposition of the beauty of the musical passage from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Number 5 Opus 23 and the lightness of the flight of the butterfly, despite the gravity of its meaning, this work illuminates the paradoxical experience of our shared humanity during this quite terrifying time of crisis.”

Read the rest of part four here