We already knew that reality surpasses fiction, but the script for this year 2020 is difficult to assimilate: pandemics, global economic crisis, inequalities, racism, fascism, psychopaths presiding over some of the most powerful countries in the world…
Between disbelief, gravity and helplessness, the need for a routine that structures our daily life often wins. We are not the first nor will we be the last. On August 2, 1914, Franz Kafka wrote in his diary: “Today Germany has declared war. In the afternoon I went swimming.”
During these months of confinement we have been more connected than ever, with the aim of sharing a situation that overwhelmed us. This compulsive need to be present digitally has found many institutions in a process of profound rethinking. What role do art and culture play in all this? How can it contribute to thinking about ourselves in relation to the world? How can we be more horizontal and participatory? And also, to definitively incorporate the digital aspect into the programs of the institutions?
While they remained closed, museums, galleries, cultural institutions and independent initiatives have opted, with more or less success, to offer access to their audiovisual archives, schedule talks to think and rethink about the situation and its consequences or commission works from confinement to artists. We look, listen, give our opinions and share the good intentions and the will to be better, when, before the end of the state of alarm, we already see that things have not changed too much, with a rush to open the terraces of the bars before the museums and theaters and that, even with the massive consumption of culture during confinement, when it comes down to it, the path towards precariousness continues unchecked.
How easy it is to talk about rethinking, redefining and reinventing everything! How quick we are to post the slogan of the moment on our social media profiles! And how brilliant some comments on Twitter! We are human and throughout the day our feelings move between meme and drama, between the occurrence and the gravity of the weight of the tragedy.
As has happened at other times in history, there are situations in which reality is so harsh, so disconcerting and unfair, that only through exaggerated representation (Honoré Daumier’s caricatures, to show what he did not like about the society in which he lived), satire (John Heartfield’s photomontages from the 30s and 40s with, for example, “Hitler swallowing gold and talking junk”, literally) or sharp comments made with a very schematic drawing (“ephemeral but drawn with a permanent marker”, as Dan Perjovsch says) can one be as precise as a dissecting scalpel.
Dan Perjovschi, Virus Diary (Rich-Poor), 2020
Courtesy of the artist and https://www.internationaleonline.org/
