A R E W E V E R Y slowly returning to normalcy? Will there something “normal” ever exist again? Will we do without pre pandemic indispensable things like in-person meetings? How about viewing art, a monologue, a live performance?
I was so looking forward to my first post lock down visit to an art gallery. In New York, some started re-opening last week, by appointment only. Security guards wear masks. Receptionists sit behind plexiglass. If galleries were temples of antiseptic austerity before Covid-19, now they are even more. Who could have imagined the pairing up of a drippy, impulsive canvas by 80’s enfant terrible Julian Schnabel with a bottle of Purel hand sanitizer? (They share an immense room at Pace Gallery). I slipped in Metro Pictures although a sign was blocking the entrance predicating their occupancy quota. But the gallery was totally white and empty. Clinical silence and the echo of a 150-day closure made admiring the art almost impossible. I left unmoved, uninspired.
I walked out, put on my mask, and passed by one of the few auto mechanics left in the neighborhood. I shared my free M11 bus ride back home with two nuns in full regalia including black masks. A construction worker was absorbed in a TikTok meme. Through the window I saw written on a pillar: “Can we still fall in love this summer? —7SoulsDeep.” Then some plywood-covered stores with unintelligible signatures and creative glyphics that only street artists can produce. I found more solace in these images than the art gallery promenade. I tuned in TikTok myself, checking out the latest posting from Uffizi Gallery: gifs of Botticelli’s virgins in sync with Jay-Z. Refreshing.
— Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 7/21/2020
(*) One of Bascal’s aphorisms, in Plas Bascal, Aphorismes, Wythe Avenue Books, Brooklyn, 1978