Interview with Anita Glesta

16/11/20

Edition 3 of The Flux Review

The Impact of Covid-19 on Art Critics

27/04/20

The Impact of Covid-19 on Art Critics

“If there’s no art, does an art critic make a sound?” asks the London Art Critic, aka Tabish Khan, in his first blog post in more than five years, considering the impact of Covid-19 on him, “an art critic who now has no art to critique”. This is the question I have been posing to him, and various other colleagues, over the last few weeks, when, strangely, despite the closure of galleries and museums, and my inability to go and view (and, accordingly, review) art, I have been as busy as ever. How? And is this the same across the board? Or are critics, like artists, feeling the impact and worrying about the uncertain future ahead?

Read the full essay here

The impact of Covid-19 on artists. Part 5: the long-term outlook and the growth in online offerings

21/04/20

Part 5: the long-term outlook and the growth in online offerings

In the final instalment of this five-part essay, comprising conversations with artists around the world, we look at the possible long-term effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the art world and the rise in online offerings

What will be the lasting impact of the coronavirus on the arts and artists? It is hard to predict anything right now, when no one knows how long various countries will be in lockdown, and what travel restrictions will remain in place afterwards. Certainly, there seem set to be some long-lasting changes to the ways that many things are done. Sarah Strang, an artist and the director of Civic Room in Glasgow, speaks of flexibility being key – for artists and funders. There may well be clashes as shows are rescheduled, artists who were booked to be present may no longer be available (or able to fund their presence): “I don’t think the freelance workforce will come out well from this,” she says. “It needs a political, top-down decision to support this workforce.” In addition, she says: “Any artist, gallery, or arts organisation is continually fundraising, so it’s hugely precarious. This will have a huge impact. Many galleries will close permanently. If a commercial gallery can take the hit knowing it will have a good Frieze, it might be OK, but Frieze is only a breath away. The art world runs on two things: the ability to travel rapidly and internationally and the hand-to-mouth nature of earnings and artists being able to work. As we saw with the 2007 financial crisis, people don’t rally afterwards, we don’t bounce back, we still haven’t. And this is financial and physical, nobody is resilient, and it’s a world collapse, not just one country that can be bailed out.” 

Read the rest of part five here

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

The impact of Covid-19 on artists. Part 3: building communities and finding inner resilience

09/04/20

Part 3: Building communities and finding inner resilience

In the third part of this five-part essay, comprising conversations with artists around the globe, we look at the impact the pandemic – and imposed isolation – is having on them in terms of community and inner resilience

In Italy, the first western country to be badly hit by Covid-19, Francesca Pasquali (b1980, Bologna) describes the situation vividly: “Helplessness, fear, confusion – these are just some of the sensations we’re experiencing at the moment. Some people are gone, others are waiting for a verdict, poised between life and death. Uncertainty walks beside me, beside us, hour after hour, day after day. However, I am convinced that in such a dark and sad period, we must find within us resources and motivation to make sure that everything starts again as soon as possible, with renewed enthusiasm and desire to do. DO! This is the imperative … My doing is in art, my welcoming refuge. I live in the countryside and my studio is a few steps from the house. I see it from the window as soon as I wake up. It just waits to get dirty, to be messed up! I am lucky to be able to continue working, pending receipt of new dates for the exhibitions that have been postponed. Postponed? Cancelled? Who can say with certainty? Today the phone no longer rings, no emails arrive except those that communicate that exhibitions, fairs and other events are postponed. The galleries are inactive; in Italy, culture was the first sector to be affected by closures. But we did not give up, we invented a new way of enjoying art, because the desire to know and see does not subside. Never before have social media and the internet been so vital a means of connection between the isolated self and the whole world. There is fear, it is tangible, but I don’t want to get overwhelmed by emotion. These are the moments in which a sense of community, of union, re-emerges, and the true values that keep a system up and running return. The same values that I try to convey with my work: involvement, activation, sharing, love for beauty. Culture is a common good, essential.”

Read the rest of part three here

The impact of Covid-19 on artists. Part 2: Self-isolation, moving online and financial implications

06/04/20

Part 2: Self-isolation, moving online and financial implications

In the second part of this five-part essay, comprising conversations with multiple artists around the globe, we look at the impact of self-isolation, either due to sickness or preventatively, and financial implications

Sculpture and installation artist Perdita Sinclair (b1978, Surrey, UK) was self-isolating when I spoke to her, sick with what was hopefully just “normal” flu. She was meant to be going on a three-week oceanography research trip in the mid-Atlantic in May; Armando Ara (b1972, Macedonia), artist, art theoretician and co-founder of neomodernism (an art movement that espouses spiritual and aesthetic values in art) was also sick and unable even to talk (and, a week later, he is now on day 14 of the virus, and was told by paramedics the other day that they could not take him to hospital as there were no ventilators available and he was not in a high risk category). Across the ocean in Canada, Julie Fiala (b1979, Ottawa, Canada) has also been isolating with symptoms. “But they refuse to test because we do not have enough tests”. As an artist whose work relies on international travel, she describes this as a “serious hurdle – the issue is that practices like performance art and all live arts depend on networks of individuals across borders.” Fabienne Jenny Jacquet (b1970s, Ajaccio, Corsica), likewise self-isolating after developing flu-like symptoms, is also worried about the impact of travel restrictions, not just of people, but of works. “I think this will have a big impact on art sales. A lot of my work ships into the US and I am not sure what travel restrictions and strain on the transport of goods will have in term of impact. Buyers in general might not want to buy art as much if there is an economic crisis looming,” she adds, “as this is not an ‘essential’ purchase.”

Read the rest of part two here

The impact of Covid-19 on artists. Part 1: Cancellations of exhibitions and fairs

03/04/20

The impact of Covid-19 on artists

When I began thinking about how Covid-19 was affecting artists, it was still early days in the UK; the government was simply advising self-isolation for those who had symptoms or had been in contact with others known to be ill. Galleries and museums were starting to close, but the majority of the public was still out and about – it was simply a case of uncertainty about the future. Elsewhere in the world – in Italy, for example – things were more extreme, with a government lockdown already in place. Over the fortnight in which I have been speaking to artists and collecting stories and opinions, however, things have been escalating and changing rapidly. Now, the UK is also in lockdown, and all museums and galleries are shut. Travel is banned unless “essential”. And this is becoming the status across the globe. 

I put out a call for artists who wanted to talk to me about how their work or practice, planned exhibitions, income, or general livelihood was being affected, and the result has been overwhelming. I have spent much of the last fortnight on the phone, Skype and FaceTime, but am aware that the situation is changing so fast that what someone told me a week ago may have radically altered in the meantime. So as to best cover the myriad stories people have shared, this essay is going to be ordered thematically and broken down into the following five instalments: cancellations of exhibitions and fairs; self-isolation, moving online and financial implications; community and inner resilience; artistic responses to Covid-19 and the prescient zeitgeist; and long-term outlook – moving online? Most of all, I want to let the artists speak for themselves, so the following will be largely constructed out of extracts of my various conversations in the artists’ own voices.

Part one: Cancellations of exhibitions and fairs

As a starting point in terms of cancellations, I was one of three international curators, along with Peter Harrap (UK) and Florin Ungureanu (Romania), to have put together an exhibition of works on paper by UK-based and Romanian artists, Beyond Other Horizons, at the Iași Palace of Culture in Romania. It opened on 1 March and was set to run until the end of that month. Thankfully, we were able to have the opening and the British Council Symposium, for which we and a number of the artists had flown over, before arriving home to the almost immediate news that all Romanian museums had been shut for the duration. We are currently working on gathering all images for online, as well as trying to obtain funding for a catalogue comprising all works, plus essay versions of the talks given at the symposium. The works, for the time being, remain on the walls of the indeterminately closed museum.

Read the rest of part one here