Art in Pandemic Times

 

Lots of things have changed in the last month, also our perception of the world, affecting artists directly. Art is an original means of expression whereby artists show what they see, and what is more important, what they feel. To deal with the situation, some artists have introduced explicit pandemic motifs in their works. They use different mediums to transmit and spread their projects with the aim to have an impact on society, being us responsible to react to the pandemic and its consequences. Additionally, their strategies underline how important creative forms of marketing are in today’s art market and attention economy - something artists and art institutions surely can learn from.

 

 

Art and activism converge in the controversial figure of Ai Weiwei, known for his critical works infused with political ideas. As a creative activist, he denounces the Chinese government’s lack of humanity through what he calls "aesthetic statements”. Therefore, it is not surprising that Ai Weiwei did not hesitate to manifest himself when the covid-19 epidemic started to stalk Wuhan, China. Last May, he created Ai Weiwei MASK, a series of face masks printed with his own designs (for example, bearing his famous middle finger or his sunflower seeds) launched on eBay for charity, selling more than 22,000 for over $ 1,4 million in just one month. According to the artist, both creation and purchase of these artworks symbolise hope, life and social awareness. In his words: "No will is too small and no act too helpless”. 

 

Months later, in October 2020, he produced MASK, one of the clips he did for a large video project displayed on Piccadilly Lights in Piccadilly Circus, London. On it, Ai Weiwei mixes scenes from the Ai Weiwei MASK production process with empty cities images during the lockdown, ending with the following Albert Camus’ citation: "Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better”.

 

Last August, after being rejected by the most popular international film festivals worldwide, and forbidden in China, Ai Weiwei released his documentary titled Coronation on different online platforms. The film records the Wuhan lockdown during the covid-19 outbreak in the spring of 2020, as the Chinese government’s determination to control every aspect of society - even manipulating the media - in order to exterminate the virus. Ai Weiwei was in Europe (Portugal) when he asked some colleagues and friends, other artists, and a few citizens to start a report about their own and peers lives in isolation. The documentary includes firsthand material, like patients and their familiars’ interviews, besides unpublished hospital life images. Ultimately, what the artist is trying to say is that this is a movie about Chinese society and its political situation in an epidemic specific moment, emphasizing that anything that happens in China would affect the whole world: this is not a Chinese matter but a global one.

 

 

The mysterious street artist and activist Banksy has decided not to exhibit in renowned art galleries but for using public spaces as a surface of his works. Locals and lucky visitors are temporarily able to enjoy Banksy’s graffiti, as his stencil satirical murals with political and social messages on bridges, streets and walls around the world are rapidly removed for being considered an act of vandalism. Among all the contemporary artists who created during the lockdown, Banksy has been one of the most prolific.

 

His first covid-19-related artwork is from April 2020 when the enigmatic artist posted on Instagram a picture of nine stencilled rats - a recurrent motif in his works - playing havoc with one of the bathroom’s wall. Titled My wife hates it when I work from home, it is probably alluding to the suffocating confinement atmosphere.

 

In May, Banksy did something completely different compared to the last example. Game Changer is an almost monochrome illustration in which a young boy is playing with a toy in the form of a caped and masked nurse, meanwhile more conventional superheroes dolls (like Batman and Spider-Man) are piled in the small trash on the right. Banksy donated the painting to Southampton General Hospital (Hampshire, England) to honour the health staff for its efforts and hard labour during the pandemic, drawing a red cross in the nurse’s apron as a sign of hope.

 

With more than five million views, Banksy last July published a video on Instagram captioned If you don’t mask - you don’t get with the aim to encourage people wearing face masks in the tube. Banksy returns to his origins in this polemical project, offering passengers an underground art experience. The minute clip shows a man disguised as a professional cleaner spray-painting the carriages’ walls with rebellious rodents misusing the medical masks.

 

Banksy’s latest work is Aachoo!!, a graffiti spotted in December 2020 on a house on Vale Street, England’s steepest residential road. Repeating the sneeze motif - like in one of the If you don’t mask - you don’t get rats -, the English artist depicts an elderly headscarf woman sneezing so hard that she drops her walking stick and handbag at the same time she loses her denture.

 

 

There is no doubt that artists have always been cunning when they have adapted to every historical period, artistically illustrating the time in which they have lived or would have liked to live. Ai Weiwei and Banksy are current examples of this, as they have been lately creating artworks focused on the pandemic topic. 

 

In most of the mentioned projects, both artists have been responsible for their works’ diffusion, mainly using social media, deciding where and how they are displayed and sold. Their dissidence reaffirms their freedom, determining it. But although Ai Weiwei and Banksy have become self-managers, even such successful artists are not as independent from the established art institutions and the art market as it seems, since they are significant beneficiaries of them. Being considered the realists of our time, they have often been criticised for making activism a business and taking advantage of other people’s misfortunes in order to make art. Art market’s relationship with Ai Weiwei and Banksy is as controversial as their works. 

 

Many prestigious art galleries and museums have collaborated with both artists, providing them with suitable spaces to show their artworks. For example, in 2010, Ai Weiwei first exhibit Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern (London, England) had the objective to underline the individuality of the artisans, who produce every single porcelain seed, in face of the dehumanisation of people working in Chinese mass production factories. The contradiction here is that this artwork was made by numerous craftsperson, besides reaching a high value in the market. Did Ai Weiwei get what he wanted then?

 

In 2006, Banksy started the Morons’ series, a screen-print lampooning the auction world based on a photo of the moment when Van Gogh’s Sunflowers broke the sales record at Christie’s in 1987. Different print editions of this have been sold for thousands of pounds through the years at major auction houses like Christie’s, Phillips and Sotheby’s. How ironic.

 

Banksy is known for his absolute control over bringing his works to the market. Relying on Pest Control (the only point of sale for Banksy works), the English artist offers limited versions of his prints. As the supply is finite, his artworks become more desirable. This is why Banksy is currently online trading on the secondary market, and it seems prices would not stop rising. Shrewd strategy, right?

 

Ai Weiwei’s and Banksy’s works are inspiring for emerging artists who believe in the power of the present, using guerrilla marketing tactics and quotidian devices like mobile phones to spread their - artistic - vision. But not everyone could take a camera and make a film like Ai Weiwei’s Coronation or spray-painting the walls of a city like Banksy. They are able to do it because they are supported by important art organizations as well as they are part of the art market system. Still, less known artists as well as art institutions and galleries can learn from their marketing strategies and from the contrasts between art activism and the art market that characterise both of them.