Johny M L

The world, they say, cannot be the same once the Covid-19 impact is gone. Skeptics add, would there be a scenario where Covid-19 is completely gone. The optimism in the former statement and the pessimism expressed in the latter in fact are the sentiments that prevail all over the world today. Change has always been there unchanged with or without a pandemic; only thing is that we do not notice. A pandemic creates an unprecedented and unprepared for rupture that would take many years to repair. But life has to go on in the previous or in an altered fashion. Symptoms and signals are already there; the very sight of people wearing mask is not only a sign of virus deterrence but also a change in the way people perceive themselves as ‘dressed’ in the society. So are the several small and big adjustments that people all over the world have been taking since the outbreak of the Corona Virus. In this context, be sure, art cannot be the same as the pre-Covid-19 days for art is a product of the human imagination and the societies imagined, realized and activated by them.

One of the major concerns of the artists has been this; would all the avenues of exhibiting art be closed forever and be relocated in the virtual spaces? For many years, since the advent of the virtual space, artists have been using this space to circulate their aesthetical works and also to find new commercial and profitable avenues elsewhere other than their places of origin. Virtually the geographical borders of art dissemination came to be dissolved in this process and shift of the global art market to the virtual platforms also facilitated free flowing of art works and finance across the world producing larger networks of aesthetical and business interests. Today, even the provincial artists find their fans and followers from across the globe irrespective of their cultural affiliations. However, there is a sense of dejection among the artists whose die-hard belief in the very act of viewing a work of art in its original. The concern is legitimate and has to be addressed with due respect and care. Art, they feel has to be seen directly for a fuller and all round aesthetical experience.

If you ask, whether such direct appraisal and enjoyment of the works of art have been happening all these centuries, the answer would be a big NO. Art has always gone places through various mediums, mainly in print and partly through televised images and broadcasted stories about the art and artists. All these while, for a larger public art meant only aesthetical and cultural elevation, not really the flow of economics, which is rather a recent revelation though it has been there always latent in the production-dissemination-commerce circuit. Perhaps, this underlying fact was a sort of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. Everyone knew that commerce was there but overlooking it for a ‘larger’ benefit was always soothing for the viewer section of the society. However, the territorial understanding of corporeal enjoyment of art where the work of art, the place of exhibition and the viewer are in the same place, has gained a mythical stature and also unquestionable authority of/on viewing. The world of tourism flourishes in this canonical approach that the viewer and the work of art should be corporeally present in the same place.

Covid-19 has scandalized and vandalized this canonical understanding about art. While the museums and galleries remain closed for over three months the artists all over the world have found various ways of showing their works through different communication channels that predominantly are the manifestation of the large virtual space that has brought world under its all perceiving sky/eye. This in effect has caused a re-imagination about viewing art and also the corporeal involvement of it. It could be a sort of decentralization of art viewing as well as a deconstruction of the museums and galleries that have grown to mythological proportions during the last five centuries of so. However, if you look at the process of this deconstruction carefully, you could see that it has been happening simultaneously with the advent of the virtual space even before the pandemic has struck. There were initial resistances regarding viewing the works of art in a virtual space and were ‘condemned’ to be ‘reference-viewing’ or rather viewing for reference purposes with an intention to gather information and form a general idea about what is happening in the museums and galleries elsewhere. But that stands changed today.

Had the reference viewing been for gathering information regarding art, today the very same thing has become the new way of ‘normal’ viewing, replacing or displacing the former corporeal viewing of art. That is the new normal today. And the days are not that far when the commerce of art also would shift base completely to the virtual platforms. It has been so though partially and the new situation has forced one and all to reimagine the virtual platforms even for art commerce. This means the reimagining of the very making of the art and artists themselves. How do they operate in this newly created scenario? How do they create their works for aesthetical and commercial viewing? How do they present themselves as artistic personalities in the post-pandemic era? How the ideas about art could refashion the very thinking about art viewing? All these questions matter though we need to find answers in the procedural fashion, mixing both works, practice, viewing and theories regarding all of these.

I remember myself in 2015, sitting and writing about the drawings of Shilpa Gupta, a major artist in contemporary Indian art scene, which were exhibited in a prominent gallery in Delhi. I was in Trivandrum on a visit and it was sure that I would miss catching up with it as it was going to close before I returned to Delhi. Hence thought of looking at the works in the gallery web site and doing an appreciative writing and I did write and publish it in my blog. I had mentioned that I did the writing remotely, without seeing the works in person. Soon came criticism from different quarters questioning ‘authenticity’ of such writing created out of ‘not seeing’ the work (in person). I held on to my argument that it was not necessary always to see a work of art in person if the viewer knew the oeuvre of the artist in question or on display. Five years down the line, we are in a spot where we could do no art writing after seeing the works in person. I had not anticipated a pandemic then but I did know that there would be a day when the critical literature regarding art could happen without the critic going to the museums and galleries in person.

Looking at the way the galleries and museums function today (a sort of Work from Home!) one could easily gather that the shift to the virtual spaces has already happened. The technicians of the major museums and commercial galleries have been working overtime to create virtual tours of the halls, galleries and corridors, almost capable of giving real time experiences. Then it was considered as a technological feat than a practical solution or alternative to the very viewing experience of art. The more technologically advanced that you appeared the more you found yourself and your institution at the ‘fad’ end of events. But today the posturing has become a permanent feature. And the art viewing has changed. It has to be said that with the real spaces closing down for various reasons including non-commercial viability and lack of attendance (the rich and powerful patrons would be wary of the viruses in the galleries) it is not the galleries and museums that change the tack and track alone but it also forces the artists to change the very mode of art production. It could vary from downsizing the scale to the making of art to fit into the ever evolving digital space.

I am not a sci-fi writer or fan who would turn every existing bit of reality into a horrifying futuristic event in sharp, deep and unearthly colors. I say that the real spaces also would evolve along with this process. When everything is relocated to the virtual spaces what as human beings we lose is the warmth of sociality and kindness, two civilizational foundations that the human beings have generated out of millions of years of evolution. That means the collapse of humanity and the very ethical sense of living which in the long run would turn us into monsters, no doubt. The role of the art and artists (and also the creative people from science, humanities, fashion and all such fields) is to create spaces (alternative or mainstream, within architectural specificities or in the open spaces like streets) that could bring people back for real time human interactions. It boosts the purpose of living and creating; it enhances and maintains the need for equal rights and justice for people and nature; it keeps the people political, the absence of which could render people into workers that protect the nest and perish in the long run without creating anything because being political is the only way to be alive and creative. Hence, reimagining the places of meeting is also a major concern for the artists today.Though in limited numbers people are supposed to meet and maintain the engine of civilizational progress. Art is fuel of living, so art is not going to die so long as humans live on. But the perishability code has been inscribed already with the pandemic, resultant culling and genetic modification. The recoding could happen only through the reprogramming of everything, imagined and practiced through the deliberate and beautiful convergence of art and science.