The Easel

7th April 2020

Bubonic plague in Europe changed art history. Why coronavirus could do the same

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 29th March 2020

While Jerry Saltz (below) anguishes about galleries and artists, Knight wonders how the pandemic will impact art. Giotto blazed a path away from stilted Byzantine iconography. With the Black Death in 1347, his revolution stopped. Art retreated to the familiar. Survivors of the pestilence carried feelings of guilt and saw religion differently. Covid 19 may be a similar catalyst: “Fear, guilt and spiritual upheaval await.”

The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One

Jerry Saltz | Vulture | 2nd April 2020

This “true believer” has bleak expectations about the coming art world. “Most galleries don’t have cash reserves to go through a lockdown of six months.” Some art schools will close and, with them, teaching jobs for artists. Museums without large endowments will struggle, art fairs will disappear, and writing about art will shrink further. “How to survive? Passion. Obsession. Desire.”

31st March 2020

Maintenance work

Andrew Russeth | Artforum | 24th March 2020

How will the art world be changed by this pandemic? One writer expects a legacy of less travel, thus undermining the art world’s propensity of assigning “relevance through motion”. Images of empty streets are newly resonant. We will recognise new heroes – janitors, deliverers, maintenance workers. “[M]aintenance is … the hidden force that makes so much possible. Now is a time for Maintenance Art.”

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