Taking up this issue’s theme of ‘The Diary of an Artist in Confinement Interesting Times’, Selections invited artists to share their thoughts on work, art and life in general since the beginning of the year. We guided them with the following questions:
What image(s) illustrate(s) 2020 for you so far?
If you were to write a note, a reminder, a memory to yourself, or to the world, in a time capsule, and you were to open it 15 years from now, what would it say?
If you had to describe the year 2020 in brief, what would it sound like?
Some of you have dedicated this year so far to working continuously in your studio; some others have found themselves completely demotivated and have halted everything. What have you been doing? Please describe in detail and share with us the work you have been doing during this period.
The pandemic has changed our perception of time and our relationship to our homes. What is your experience?
How do you see the future of art?
Have you been reading?
Some chose to respond in a diary form or with visual storytelling; others provided their answers at varying length and in different ways. Each provides a unique insight into and reflection of the most extraordinary period of our lives to date.
Moria, Italy, Spain, GB, Trump, Brasilia,
Beirut, the Mediterranean……………….
so many tears to collect.
So, I started to shape “Teardrop vessels” from
clay, one each day.
Work during confinement
Creating spirits or divine power, guardians, demons, jujus.
Note to myself: Remember that moment one or two days after 9/11 when you thought things would go back to normal one day? This time it feels like somebody put TNT in the accelerator and all is lost. We’re not willing to learn, we’re stuck, we haven‘t made any progress, no ‘WEs’ only ‘MEs’. How I hope I’m wrong again.
The art world will suffer from corona much more than people might imagine at the moment. The art world will be even more influenced by deals that are made between superdealers and institutions, which will then shape the taste of the collectors and masses. Unfortunately, these days nobody looks, everybody only listens.
François Cheng – Cinq méditations sur la beauté: “In these times of overwhelming misery and blind violence, of natural and ecological disasters, it may seem inappropriate to talk about beauty. A provocation, almost a scandal. But it is precisely this that makes it clear to us that beauty – as opposed to evil – has its place at the other end of a reality that we have to face. I am convinced that it is our urgent and permanent task to face these two mysteries, which are the two poles of the living universe.”
Born in 1972, Timo Nasseri lives and works in Berlin. He received his diploma in photography from the Lette-Verein, Berlin in 1997. His work uses the means of natural science to open up a perspective for the poetic and fantastic. Inspired by Ibn Muqla, Nasseri started an in-depth research on Arabic writing and alphabet, giving particular attention to forms and aesthetics. His practice discusses the infinity and boundlessness, transcendence and metaphysics in a wider context and writing as the beginning and the end.
Nasseri has had solo exhibitions at Stichting Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (2018); Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah (2017); and AK Vienna (2016). His work has also been shown at Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2019); the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2017); the Melbourne Triennale (2017); Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt (2016); KW-Kunstwerke, Berlin (2015); and the Drawing Room Biennial, London (2015). He was also the winner of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2011.
A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN PRINT IN SELECTIONS #53.