Category: visual

Suddenly, La Pedrera in Barcelona went from tens of thousands of visitors per day to … no one. Ana Viladomiu is one of the few people there. “Two other tenants remain in another part of the building – separated from Viladomiu with their own elevator and staircase – while a few security guards rotate through their shifts unseen. ‘So I’m really by myself,’ she said.” – The Guardian (UK)

Stockholm’s subway system is stocked: “Since construction began in 1950, some 250 artists have decorated 94 stations across 68 miles of track.” – Wired

Now it’s pretty much stopping with the garden pots as well as the artists can’t mentor young proteges in the studio. But the already created ceramics are serving a purpose: “We hope that by arranging contact-free delivery and collection we can help people get on with their gardening at home during this strange spring. … That’s a nice transfer from the work of people making pots to something that can entertain people at home.” (And the youth get paid, too.) – The Guardian (UK)

Deborah Roberts, 57, who was set to have her first solo show in September, says, “My daddy hated art and said it was never going to be nothing. He would say, ‘What are you doing that for?’ … Nothing anyone can tell you is ever going to make you stop doing it.” Not even a pandemic that pushes your show back until January. – The New York Times

Artists from San Diego, Chicago, Saskatchewan, New York, and more weigh in. Dia Bassett, for instance: “With the COVID-19 pandemic, my life as a mom to a toddler is more confined. My parents are not able to come help with caregiving, so I’m caring for my daughter full-time. It means I create art on the fly, so I have some of my old childhood paintings and college drawings tucked in a corner by the couch to pull out at any given moment.” – Hyperallergic

Truth: “Art meme-ing has long been with us, but some mix of quarantine creativity, idle isolation and the need to connect through humor in these uncertain times is sparking a stream of mischievous art alterations.” (The Scream without the screamer? Whoa.) – The Washington Post

The museum says it’s facing a $10 million shortfall and must furlough 92 people and reduce the salaries for 85 more. The furloughed staff members, “which union officials said include about a dozen people who work in a clandestine storage facility, will be paid through April 19 and receive health benefits covered by the museum through July 31 or the date of rehire, whichever comes first.” – The New York Times

When the Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, announced the church would livestream the Shroud, things in the world of the mysterious sacred artifact got a bit weird. “Whether Nosiglia knows it or not, his decision to exhibit the Shroud of Turin virtually in real time during a global pandemic finds neat points of synchronicity with the history of the shroud’s rise to becoming Christianity’s most famous—and notorious—sacred artifact. It also forces us to rethink the limits and capabilities of digital mediation as life is exiled to virtual platforms.” – Slate

In 1995 46 percent of France’s galleries had to close after the art market crash. Estimates now are that one third of French galleries will go out of business due to the pandemic. – The Art Newspaper

“Not only is A.I. a tool for artists, who are employing machine intelligence in fascinating ways, it is also frequently a topic to be examined — sometimes in the same piece. And underlying many of the works is a deep unease. As Lisa Phillips, the director of New York’s New Museum, put it, the worries come down to ‘the prospect that machines are going to take over.’ She added, ‘What are we unleashing?'” – The New York Times