5 important articles of March
What Writers Can Learn From Visual Artist Statements
https://medium.com/swlh/what-writers-can-learn-from-visual-artist-statements-daa6544cd85a
In the world of visual art, artists are expected to have a statement explaining what you create and why. Writers can learn a lot from walking through this process with regard to their own body of work.
Coronavirus: for performers in lockdown, online is becoming the new live
There’s still a great deal of uncertainty as to what impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on the cultural life. More and more people are now choosing to self-isolate and theatres, cinemas, clubs and concert halls are closing down for the duration of quarantine with an explicit reminder that an enforced lockdown is ever more imminent.
Pandemics from Homer to Stephen King: what we can learn from literary history
From Homer’s Iliad and Boccaccio’s Decameron to Stephen King’s The Stand and Ling Ma’s Severance, stories about pandemics have – over the history of Western literature such as it is – offered much in the way of catharsis, ways of processing strong emotion, and political commentary on how human beings respond to public health crises. Ranging from the classics to contemporary novels, this reading list of pandemic literature offers something in the way of an uncertain comfort and a guide for what happens next.
Body issues: artists’ maps of the human body reveal our desire for immortality
“Dr. Adina Kamien-Kazhdan, senior curator at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, spoke to me about her exhibition “Bodyscapes” from self-imposed quarantine in Jerusalem. Many of the works in the show, she told me, had been “bandaged.” Since the institution closed due to COVID-19 on March 15th, the staff has had to cover up vulnerable works on paper”, says a Alina Cohen, a Brooklyn-based arts and culture writer. It’s a fitting metaphor, given the show’s corporeal themes and the immediate concerns that weigh heavily on our minds: illness, as well as the strengths and limitations of bodies – young and old.
“You can’t do this by yourself”: can US museums and artists survive COVID-19?
https://frieze.com/article/you-cant-do-yourself-can-us-museums-and-artists-survive-covid-19
When The New York Times reported that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art faces a US$100 million loss from the COVID-19 pandemic, alarm bells sounded throughout the US art world. Will smaller institutions which don’t have the Met’s pre-coronavirus endowment of US$3.6 billion be able to survive? And how will artists, often living in straitened circumstances, find resources?
