How Has Art Adapted Amidst Covid?
Alysha Wong, Year 13, Keller House
Art is an integral part of society, acting as a means of global communication, a record of human history and a device that elicits important conversations necessary in creating a utopia. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, artists and museum curators have needed to reevaluate their previous procedures of displaying artwork. What once was suspended on the cream walls and framed by gold in Tate Britain is now a photograph with its potential to evoke, to comfort, to disturb restricted by 2dimensional screens. Undoubtedly, this has taken a toll on both ends: the artist and the viewer. However, it may be far too reductive just to look at the confining limits of online exhibitions; it is equally important to reflect on the possibilities of displaying art in online environments. Despite being seen as a hassle or a missed chance of remuneration, other institutions have capitalized on this shift, taking steps to advance engagement levels with their viewers. It is helpful to note that online exhibitions are not limited to the museum’s website. Some museums have chosen to release interactive material on social media platforms. This approach has overt benefits to institutions: by tracking online viewers’ activity (eg. the number of visits and duration spent on
each artwork), quantitative data is easily generated which enables these institutions to understand and analyse their museum ethnography. The democratising potential of art on social media platforms is among the most gratifying pros to the approach; art now has the utmost potential to reach the masses, perhaps including once marginalised audiences. This also poses a solution to the gentrification of art, removing it from its bourgeois, conservative roots into a new point in time where nongrammatic expression, rather than privilege and indulgence, serves as the nexus of art. For instance, the V&A museum in London is home to the world’s oldest dated carpet: the Ardabil Carpet. Having survived an earthquake in the shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din and multiple transactions from Iran to Manchester. It is currently stored in the V&A where it was previously lit up for display during a brief window of 10 minutes every 1.5 hours to preserve its rich colours and complex textures. The incorporation of the carpet in the museum’s online collection, owing to the pandemic, instantiates more sanguine aspects of displaying artwork online. A recent survey by the Pew’s Research Centre’s Internet & American Life Project further demonstrates this cause and effect, where 92% agree with the statement “the internet has
increased engagement in the arts by providing a public platform.” If an online collection has more reach than its physical form, whilst being able to keep the artefacts in perfect condition, are we witnessing the beginning of a new era of art-displaying, where we find more and more artwork exhibited online? Nevertheless, the viewer experience of art online is incomparable with that of art in a physical exhibition, where one would immerse themselves not only in the work behind the frames or glass panels, but momentarily into the depths of human history and culture. When finely-glazed porcelain plates or 6-foot-tall sculptures are photographed and presented on computer screens, they lose their impact. Instead of pausing, contemplating and allowing ourselves to be engrossed in the artwork, we tend to scroll, click, and swipe quicker online. As technology develops, we are increasingly accustomed to instant gratification. In a 2004 study by Stephen M. Nowlis on the Effect of a Delay Between Choice and Consumption on Consumption Enjoyment, he observed that when people are waiting for something they like, their delay in gratification increases their subjective enjoyment. Similarly, it can be argued that the speed and frequency of pop-up ads in which the Internet endorses harms the
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