PORTRAIT OF A PANDEMIC

Conceptualizing our post-pandemic world can be overwhelming given the collective isolation and trauma suffered, which cannot be communicated in a concrete or quantitative manner. Looking to past pandemics can be helpful in understanding the cyclical responses and cultural shifts that occur as a result. These changes can be understood in an art historical context by examining the artistic movements that are created as a response to widespread disorder and disease. My research project focuses on the artistic movements that arose after three past pandemics—the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and the 1980s AIDS epidemic—in order to discover common themes, sentiments, and techniques. The Black Death catalyzed a return to Classical art, the Spanish Flu inspired Expressionism, and the AIDS epidemic created uniquely political and critical art work. Universal themes of family, insecurity, religion, and questioning arise during these three time periods, as they do today. In studying past pandemics and their artistic consequences, there is the opportunity to understand our post-pandemic world—both in itself and in relation to the past. Current technologies have also made what we can expect in post-pandemic art infinitely more accessible and universal, with the rise of NFTs, blockchain, and digital art. There is an immense opportunity to begin a communal reckoning with the events of COVID-19 and working to heal through artistic expression. Even for the non-artist, viewing art recognizing the internal turmoil and universal devastation can be extremely powerful.