The Easel

5th May 2020

What Is Street Photography without Street Life?

Geoff Dyer | Aperture | 30th April 2020

The earliest photographs of Paris or New York show alluringly empty streets. They weren’t. They bustled, but cameras were not yet able to capture moving figures. Now, our streets really are deserted, reducing street photography to “a species of architectural photography. The loss of street life necessary to minimize [Covid 19 spread] involves the loss of almost everything that makes the life of the street photographer worth living.”

28th April 2020

Close Contact

Michael Lobel | Artforum | 21st April 2020

Spanish flu killed millions yet seems absent from art works of that period. But perhaps not. John Singer Sargent, who caught the flu while working as a British war artist, produced Gassed, which shows soldiers blinded by gas.  It “equates [war and pandemic] in its portrayal of a group of people waiting to receive medical attention. [I]t makes what is so fearful in a time of viral pandemic—physical proximity and human touch—into a saving grace.”

Nina Katchadourian

Aruna D’Souza | 4Columns | 24th April 2020

Now here is art for our constrained circumstances. Katchadourian has lifted her profile with several series of works made under a lockdown of sorts – long distance flying in economy. Most notable among these is her series Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.  These inventive works encourage us to “lean into the boredom, and there to rediscover the pleasures of play”.

The impact of Covid-19 on art critics

Anna McNay | Studio International | 27th April 2020

Most art critics are self-employed and work on a project by project basis. For them, life now has a gritty immediacy, addressing postponed projects, doing the filing and trying out new ideas.  This writer cannot disguise an inability to answer her own jaunty question – “If there’s no art, does an art critic make a sound?” Her piece on how artists have been impacted by the shutdown is here.

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