Since the lockdown began, as curators, we have been wondering how the artists witnessed this particular moment. In what direction their research move and how it is reacting to the pandemic.
The artist is often pushed by the desire of solitude and intimate dimensions which in this case have been altered by a forcing. With this virtual exhibition, conceived in fact as a real investigation and testimony, which involved everyone without distinction, we are trying to analyze the role of the artist during this precise historical moment.
Quarantine is a project that compares International artists who experienced the COVID-19 emergency in geographically different places, however unanimously undergoing the same restrictions. This research does not claim to be an answer to the many questions that arose in this period about the fate of art. Nor how the methods of enjoying the art will probably be different from what we have known previously. It aims to testify, with an aesthetic approach, the urgency of telling in order not to forget: a theme that can be found in every age.
In the USA, COVID-19 has hit the Black and Latino community extremely hard. Despite the heavy toll this virus has taken on us and our communities, Artists of Color press on and continue to create for us and especially for their family. There is an African Proverb “Familia significa que nadie se queda atras o se olvida” (Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten).
Through the Art Now After Hours multimedia platform we will develop a series of exhibitions related to this topic. The virtual space is therefore configured as an additional tool for dialogue and use. Furthermore, it is known how the identity of cultural spaces has not always been the same and how the objectives are data that vary with the passage of time. The production of knowledge is a process, that has been put in place at all times and the choice of materials is one of many expressive modalities.
Quoting the words of Michel de Certeau:
Through contemporary art it is possible to articulate a second, poetic geography in which we search for the relics of meaning and sometimes their discards, the overturned remains of great ambitions.
By: Carla Ricevuto and Robin King
The Quarantine Project is made by possible with the generous support of Oglivy, YRB Magazine, A King Production, Shinju Whisky and Quam Gallery