“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.1988, Termoli, Italy. Works and lives in Mexico City)
As the pandemic stopped the clock of busy existence in Mexico City, artist Stefano Morrone feared the “actual mental damage caused by such a long period of self-isolation.” At the beginning, he roamed the closed, emptied city making documents of the moment. He captured a lone street cleaner on a silent boulevard, a vacant café counter draped in black-and-yellow closure tape, a solitary sidewalk vendor hoping to sell shimmering face shields. “But I started to be afraid of leaving my house. I was afraid of going crazy and of disappearing into depression. The days were all the same and fear and frustration about the future increased.” To find a way forward and to express his feelings, the artist created this more elusive image, saturated in the symbolism of death and life, separation and connection. It is from the moment of Covid-19, yet somehow beyond it.
