Art in the Time of the Pandemic

Due to the coronavirus, many galleries and museums around the world are presenting their exhibitions or artists’ videos online. Here is a selection to explore.

Petrit Halilaj: Very Volcanic Over This Green Feather

“Petrit Halilaj's work investigates cultural identity, nationhood and heritage, and ideas of personal and collective history. Hear from the artist about his childhood in an Albanian refugee camp during the Kosovan war (1998-9) and the drawings he made, which he has re-interpreted into large scale hanging sculptures in his exhibition at Tate St Ives.”

Read also David Trigg’s review of the exhibition:

Petrit Halilaj

Art Basel | Meet the Artists | Anne Imhof

“In this episode of Meet the Artists, Imhof discusses how painting, drawing, and music are all part of her intensely synergetic practice.”

Mit Jai Inn: Dreamworld

Ikon Gallery presents the first major solo exhibition in Europe by leading Thai artist Mit Jai Inn (b.1960). Comprising recent works made from multiple layers of canvas and paint, it fills the gallery’s white-walled spaces with a kaleidoscope of material colour.”

Read also David Trigg’s review of the exhibition:

Mit Jai Inn

Megan Rooney: BONES ROOTS FRUIT

Megan Rooney: Bones Roots Fruits

“Megan Rooney’s first solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac gallery presents entirely new paintings – ten large-scale and one monumental – alongside a selection of works on paper from Old Baggy Root, an ongoing series of abstracted portraits.

Read also Izabella Scott's 2016 interview with Megan Rooney:

Megan Rooney interview

Tokyo: Art & Photography

A dizzying array of 400 years of artworks from the capital is testimony to the ability of the Japanese people to reinvent themselves. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Read David Trigg's review:

Tokyo: Art & Photography

Walter Price: Pearl Lines

Walter Price on his exhibition at Camden Art Centre, 2021.

Read also David Trigg's review:

Walter Price

Pope.L – Notations, Holes and Humour

“A solo exhibition of work by Pope.L, his first exhibition with Modern Art, and his first solo show in London in more than a decade.”
Modern Art, London

Art Basel | Meet the Artists | Kara Walker

“Kara Walker has shown her silhouetted depictions of plantation life in most of the world’s leading institutions. Her monumental sculptures have made the headlines from New York to London. Now, Kunstmuseum Basel is revealing a lesser-known aspect of Walker’s prolific creative output: her drawings. Kara Walker: A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be gathers over 600 drawings executed over the last 28 years.”

Watch also Anna McNay's 2013 interview with Kara Walker. “I don’t know how much I believe in redemptive stories,” says Walker. “Triumph never sits still. Life goes on. People forget and make mistakes. Heroes are not completely pure, and villains aren’t purely evil. I’m interested in the continuity of conflict.”

Kara Walker

Miguel Chevalier: Extra Natural 2021

Musée de Gajac, Villeneuve-sur-Lot. “The Extra-Natural exhibition questions nature in the era of the artificial world and offers a journey through the heart of a reinvented natural environment. Visitors discover through various digital and lenticular paintings, and through a generative and interactive virtual reality installation, a generation of virtual flowers and gardens in a symphony of dazzling colours.”

Watch also Anna McNay's 2018 interview with Miguel Chevalier. ‘I feel that I live in what’s happening today’

Miguel Chevalier

François Morellet: Rigorous Absurdity

Hauser & Wirth. “On the occasion of ‘La dation François Morellet,’ a new exhibition opening 9 June at Centre Pompidou featuring 18 key works by the foundational French minimalist, ‘Ursula’ magazine presents a career-spanning look at Morellet’s twists on the rigors of a weighty movement. The film is narrated by Alexandre Devals, the Director of the Venet Foundation in Le Muy, France, who was a friend to the artist.”

Read also Angeria Rigamonti di Cutò's 2016 interview with François Morellet. ‘Art is frivolous even when it takes itself seriously’

François Morellet

Alex Da Corte: As Long as the Sun Lasts

The Met – Artist Interview. Curator Shanay Jhaveri talks to Alex Da Corte about As Long as the Sun Lasts, his installation for The Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, on view until 31 October 2021.

Read also Lilly Wei's review. This brightly coloured stainless steel, aluminium and fibreglass installation, depicting Sesame Street’s Big Bird swinging on a crescent moon, is just what is needed after a year of despair.

Alex Da Corte

Jacolby Satterwhite

Jacolby Satterwhite: Birds in Paradise

Hirshhorn MuseumLost in Place: Voyages in Video. “This series of eleven videos by an international group of contemporary artists responds to the ways in which the past year’s events have dramatically changed our experience of space.” The videos are from Hirshhorn’s collection and a new video will be shown online each week until 20 August starting with Jacolby Satterwhite’s Birds in Paradise (2019), followed by Hiraki Sawa: Dwelling (2003); Chris Chong Chan Fui: BLOCK B (2009); Teresa Hubbard/Alexander Birchler: House with Pool (2004); Ragnar Kjartanssen: S.S. Hangover (2013-14); Laure Prouvost: Swallow (2013); Michael Bell-Smith: Up and Away (2006); Pierre Huyghe: One Million Kingdoms (2001); Superflex: Flooded McDonald’s (2009); Carlos Amorales: Dark Mirror (2005); Guido van der Werve: Nummer Negen (#9) The Day I Didn’t Turn with the World (2007).

Ellen Altfest

Ellen Altfest: Nature

White Cube An online exhibition of new work by Ellen Altfest. “This collection of watercolours depict subjects that Ellen comes across in her local woodlands of Connecticut, including retrieved objects such as an acorn or a weathered leaf, laid against a man’s skin. Microscopically examined, these close-ups provide an intimate contemplation of the natural world.”

David Smith

David Smith. Follow My Path

Hauser & Wirth, New York. This exhibition, both online (video and walkthrough) and by appointment, “explores the daring artistic processes by which Smith revolutionized notions of sculpture’s form and function, embarking on new terrain in the field of abstraction”.

Not Vital

Not Vital: Paintings

Thaddaeus Ropac. This online exhibition presents “Swiss artist Not Vital in an intimate new light and explores the making of this series of paintings. It includes an exclusive video with Not Vital, and a conversation between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London.”

Claes & Coosje: A Duet

Pace, 540 West 25th Street, New York and online. “This exhibition sheds new light on the philosophical, aesthetic, and artistic dialogue between Claes Oldenburg and the late Coosje van Bruggen—among the best-known artist-couples of the post-1960s era.”

Georg Baselitz: Freitag war es schön

Thaddaeus Ropac online exhibition. “Georg Baselitz new series (It was fine on Friday) comprises portraits of his wife Elke, whose image has occupied a prominent position in the development of his practice for over 50 years. Created in his new studio in Salzburg, Austria, the works reveal the artists ongoing conceptual exploration of his personal style.” View all artworks with 360° gallery experience.

Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller’s first NFT

Jeremy Deller’s first non-fungible token video artwork, The Last Day, “makes the short transition from the idyll to the apocalypse, which is our current destination”. The proceeds will be donated to charity. View the video and sale on OpenSea here.

Mat Collishaw: Echolocation

“Echolocation, a new outdoor projection by the acclaimed British artist Mat Collishaw opens to the public on 14 April in Kingston upon Thames, London. Excavating more than a millennium of local history, the eleven-metre-long, three-channel video installation is on view at the Undercroft, a long alleyway that runs between the river Thames and All Saints Church. Referencing the church’s heritage, bats and Kingston’s prodigal son Eadweard Muybridge, the specially commissioned work is the artist’s first permanent outdoor public art installation in the UK.” Location: 6 Riverside Walk, Kingston KT1 1QN. Open daily until 11pm

Watch also Studio International's 2015 interview with Mat Collishaw.

Mat Collishaw

Stephen Chambers

Collections: Stephen Chambers

Flowers Gallery, online exhibition and video tour. “This exhibition highlights paintings from the Gallery’s collection, which shown together delineate his developing style from the influences of his formative years to his current working practices.”

Watch also Studio International's 2017 interview with Stephen Chambers at the Venice Biennale.

Stephen Chambers