Art and Culture have been affected like so many other sectors of life and the economy, but we should not ignore the fact that for artists historically, challenges and the management of marginal situations have played an important role both in creation itself and in the birth of new paths. But we should not ignore the particular psyche of artists that sometimes helps them to heal and deal with their wounds through their works and other times that tests them to levels beyond their endurance with tragic consequences.
The panic spread by the pandemic due to the sudden cessation of exhibitions and the closure of all art venues caused immense embarrassment. I will always remember my long conversations with our artists because the perspective and the perspective they offered me was something that no journalist, politician, infectious disease specialist or expert could have given me. Enjoying their profound analyses, I listened to their common struggle and longing together that I could sum up in the anticipation of creating that art that would narrate the incomprehensible ordeal of humanity and that would help it get back on its feet again. Just as the artists continued to create during World War I, so they did in the midst of the pandemic. As an example I mention the sculptor Rania Schoretsaniti’s who was also affected by the recent earthquake in Elassona and continued to create in the midst of the hailstorm, or the international sculptor Vassiliki who, with the ban on human proximity, I saw her making empty hugs, or Brigitte Polemis who is experiencing the pandemic as an opportunity and has already completed her new series of works.
The big surprise therefore did not come from the artists but from the public who responded to the pandemic in an equally creative way, choosing to enrich their lives through the acquisition of artworks, to give a new dimension to their spaces, to "see" the houses of confinement not as prisons but as paradises and shelters for souls.
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