“There is another world, but it is in this one,” said Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In this exhibition, artists look to the future, imagining how we move forward from the tumultuous events of the past year. [read more]
Art in the Plague Year is an online exhibition organized by UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov, and Rita Sobreiro Souther. UCR ARTS’s programs are supported by UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the City of Riverside, Altura Credit Union, and Anheuser-Busch.
All works in this exhibition are reproduced with permission of the artists/copyright holders. Works (images, video, audio or other content) must not be used or reproduced for any purposes other than fair use without prior consent of the artists.
(b. 1962, Los Angeles, CA. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)
Seen/Unseen, from the series Walking in the Time of Corona
Video, sound, 2:18 min. Best viewed in full-screen.
Under Covid-19 isolation, artist Julia Schlosser began walking endless circles in the few blocks surrounding her Los Angeles home, a neighborhood known as the Bull Creek Pocket. On March 29, 2020, she started taking iPhone photographs, making maps of her walks using Google Earth, keeping lists of subjects she does not photograph. “My neighborhood is the container for my anxiety, fear, boredom and loneliness. The quiet events marked on my sidewalks and streets are the sole tangible means I have of experiencing the horrific life and death consequences of the pandemic. Animals are the only beings who seem ‘safe’. I’m not likely to make them sick and vice versa, and they don’t avoid me as I walk like the people do. At first, I carried a ruler with me because I wanted every piece of evidence to be the same relative size in the photographs: eighteen inches from the camera. Now I just measure on my leg, but like everything in this series, it’s a flawed attempt at control. If I’m rushed or excited, I get closer or farther away. And I always struggle for balance. I struggle to keep the camera level to the ground. I don’t touch or move anything. I move myself and my camera but none of the subjects that I photograph.”