‘We only see what we know’
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 – 1832
All my life, I’ve been afraid. I’ve been very afraid. I’ve been afraid of reaching out, afraid of being myself and afraid of saying what I really think and feel. So yes, I am afraid, I’m also very afraid of these big bad existentialist threats that we face and from what I can gather almost everyone else is also afraid of them too. On top of our climate crisis, our rapidly dwindling natural resources and an ever widening gap between social, political, and economic inequalities, collectively in 2020 we experienced yet another existentialist threat to humanity: a global pandemic.
In 2020 we got to see a world that we didn’t know, a world that suddenly appeared to be stripped of all it’s capitalist spectacle. In the 1960s Guy Debord stated in the Society of the Spectacle that ‘In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false’ and it seemed that we had been able to glimpse an inversion of this maxim.
With it’s meaning no longer making any sense, the political economy and symbolic exchange value of the sign was collapsing. However companies were quick to adopt the people’s mantra of ‘we are in this together’. I was already very familiar with this phrase, first hearing it in the lyrics of the post-punk band New Model Army’s 1989 song ‘Vagabonds’:
‘We are old, we are young, we are in this together Vagabonds and children, prisoners forever’
However in this context and the context that I’ve always imagined it having some kind of relevancy was that of the poor and the less well off, who were always ‘in it together’ and knowing the best way ahead was ultimately to ‘stick together’.
Above: The Stone Breaker’s By Gustave Courbet (1)
This brought to mind the 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet titled ‘The Stone Breaker’s’, a work of social realism, depicting two peasants, an old man and his son, breaking rocks. The young man hands his father a new tray of rocks to break and we imagine that in some point in his life, the young man will take over from his father. The painting can be a metaphor for lots of things. The older and outgoing generation works to deal with the problem (the existentialist threat) and ultimately the next generation will inherit the responsibility and take over the task.
But now in 2020 the phrase of ‘we are in this together’ was being appropriated and applied across all classes of people and social divides. With this new shift towards ‘pandemic advertising’, each company was keen to adapt marketing and advertising to address and reflect this unique situation. Their ads began falling into distinct categories such as: ‘We’re doing something’; ‘we thought you should know’ and ‘we’re here for you’ with most containing the phrase ‘we are in this together’. All seemingly wanting to appear to be doing something in the fight against our existential threats.
We are the unfortunate generation that can therefore lay claim to ‘being in it together’ and having lived through a Global Pandemic. Borders closed, shops abruptly shut and everything basically ceased to operate. Apart from essential trips to the supermarket, we were all largely confined to our own homes.
Above: ‘I don’t dream as much as I used to’, by the Author, 2020
In the UK and Europe however (as of July 2021) we now seem to be in a somewhat emergent state of exiting the pandemic while sadly other parts of the world are still in it’s midst. From it’s beginning in March 2020 we have experienced a vast amount of change, uncertainty and emotions. Are we at the end now of the dizzying array of rules that were changing almost weekly and how different is the world going to be from now on? The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) said that:
“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
The beginning of the pandemic did indeed feel like a resetting event, where we could take a big pause and then take in our surroundings. It seemed as if the world was experiencing a unique ‘resetting’ event. We could take stock of the state of our world and the damage that had been done to it. It is with out doubt difficult, problematic and almost near impossible to sum up the months between March 2020 and July 2021 in a succinct and concise manner. It will most certainly require much critical discussion in the forthcoming months and years. Our awareness of the multitude of existentialist threats that face us and the need to deal with them immediately is surely an absolute top priority.
In forthcoming discussions we might then hope to be able to ‘unpack’ some of what we have been through and how this has changed our world and also how it has impacted on our creative practices. In the broader field, this peacetime challenge to ‘normality’ has been unprecedented. In the creative sector, Art fairs and gallery shows were cancelled and moved online and questions came to mind such as: How does an online show compare to an ‘In Real Life’ (IRL) show?; How has this moment impacted on creative practices and our thinking, themes and interests; What things have changed around us?; The positives and negatives in education and technologies, democratisation and the future in a post- pandemic world where there are still other big existential threats to fight.
Above: ‘I’ve seen the lights’, by the Author, 2021
During the pandemic it would appear that creativity was a light at the end of the tunnel. Many people turned to arts and crafts for escapism and well being, becoming ‘makers’. Many found inspiration through TV shows such as ‘Grayson’s Art Club’ on the UK’s Channel 4. The many themes during the programmes allowed people to think about their lives, their surroundings and to participate in not only the ‘pausing’ of the world, but also in the art world itself. Perhaps people felt that the art world and creativity in general was a good place to seek refuge from the overbearing existential threats?
Creativity was therefore being used as an optical lens to both view and deal with the trauma of the global pandemic. However largely it appears that most of the output over the last few years seems to be positive art that makes little reference to existentialist threats (2) and not art that might be viewed in an abject sense (such as Hal Foster’s reference to that of McCarthy, Pettibon or Kelley) (3) as one might have imagined.
On Monday 19th of July 2021, the UK Government (and shortly followed by devolved UK Governments) lifted the easing of lockdowns to reduce the level to zero. This for many would perhaps signal the end of the pandemic, well at least in the UK. However the future is still far from certain. Discussions are now necessary (even if they may serve the purpose of a personal catharsis and a sense of healing for an individual) in the hope that we can prevent other such existential threats from reoccurring again in the future and also to re-affirm our commitments to continue to be afraid of them, rather than to become complacent with them.
References:
1. Image used courtesy of Web Gallery of Art: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15452563
2. Jonathan Jones review of the British Art Show 9:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jul/09/british-art-show-9-aberdeen
3. Please see ‘Obscene, Abject, Traumatic’, Hal Foster, 1996. originally published in October journal.