A decision was made, as a first in “modern times” that there would be no picture on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, 24 May 2020. The significance of the moment was the number of Covid deaths in the United States reached 100,000. The list of names and brief descriptions represents only one-hundredth of the deaths, as there are only 1000 names on the page. I obtained a hard copy of the front section of the paper to use for a collage. The use of newspaper copy to commemorate this moment connects my new work to the collage I made as a memorial to 9.11.01, also incorporating a newspaper list of the victims. In lieu of basing the composition on hand-drawn interior spaces, I opted to work more directly on photos, a first for my approach to collage. The choice of photos represents the ubiquity of the coronavirus’ spread and those spaces that are off limits to the public; the New York subway, a morgue, a library and an art gallery. The upper floors are a home environment and at the top are hospital ICU units, complete with ventilators.The interior spaces we inhabit now are reflected with an overlay of virtual viewing commands, superimposed on those rooms. The commands of “Next”, “Previous”, “Read More” and “Share” take on new meaning and significance in these confines.
At the time of this writing, six weeks after 24 May, the number of deaths in the US is 130,000.
Related
- Diagrams
- Historic documents
- Newspaper
- Text