I wanted to talk a bit about the art worlds current form in covid-19 and why I chose not to take part in the online graduate show. Coming from a practice that on paper is the most assessable with online viewing I want to talk about why I am against it.
Firstly I want to say I don’t agree with online shows all together to be they feel like a backwards way to look at an exhibition where the audience cannot be immersed with what they are seeing as well-being wrapped up in a digital practice to give a disguise that they are a new innovative way of looking at art and seeing an exhibition but gives an unappealing atmosphere and something that you will click through in a matter of minutes and may not getting a reaction or feeling from the pieces that you would get in the flesh.
As well as this I just don’t believe they work very well and my own reason for not part taking in online shows is the curation aspect the shows are limited in the way they can show works to me they become a group portfolio where instead of viewing my art you are looking at a picture of my work which refers to my earlier point of how you don’t get the same experience from seeing something close up and curated correctly.
I also have fears like any industry art will follow suit with the path that sport, and cinema have gone down with their Pay Per View products over charging their audiences to see a watered-down version of the experience. How long is it until there is a paywall to see an online exhibition? Is this really what we need to be doing right now? especially albeit with restrictions galleries are reopening is a temporary halt a reason to totally go against the foundations of seeing art and take a step backwards being sold as a revolutionary way to experience.
I think we need to as a cultural need to stop thinking that everything online and digital is the future I think we are blinded by the internet in to thinking everything is more advanced than its analogue counterpart before COVID-19 nobody dreamed of ever doing an online show it wasn’t an option that need to be discussed.
Also, if you take a look at Olafur Eliasson’s (insert piece name) from show (insert title) last year if we move towards online shows work like how to you recreate the feeling and specular from that show? You wouldn’t be able so why should any artists work have to be displayed in an inferior way.
As we hopefully start to come away from this pandemic and hopefully be able to view shows without restrictions soon lets also leave online shows behind too as I strongly believe that there is no place for them and inferior to going to an exhibition in a gallery and seeing work the way it is intended to be seen.