Barbara Krueger, social media, and touching grass once in a while: social media’s effects on the way we interact with art and the art world. A very opinionated piece by Caro Lestón.
HELLO WONDERFUL READERS! My name is Caro and I’m Art Etcetera’s brand spankin’ new contributor. For a little context, I live in the rainy grey dungeon that is London, where there are galleries, shows, openings, and talks at every turn. “Caro!” I hear you say “Does this mean you can be spontaneous, and gallery hop every Thursday?” Only if you don’t value your time and mental health.
You’ll see my love-hate relationship with this city crop up a lot during future articles, but let’s not talk about my difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships, that’s for my therapist and I to unpack this week. Let’s talk about a phenomenon (it’s been going on so long I’m not sure we can even call it that anymore)- social media and the art world.
Last week, much to the dismay of gallery attendants everywhere, I headed my boisterous self to the Serpentine to see Barbara Krueger’s “Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.” For anyone who may not know her, Krueger is an American artist best known for her use of imagery and words, drawing on her background as a graphic designer. The show I went to consisted of wonderful, immersive installations and video work, making ample use of short-format TikTok videos weaved within their digital fabric to keep the public’s attention. Imagine this- a video with important, powerful, political writings overlaid by Tiktok videos, internet comedy, and childish, short format humour, where the audience stayed from start to finish. And then, in the room next door, a video consisting of equally powerful pages being typed, where annotation was used as commentary. In comparison to the loud video next door, only a small handful of people stayed. Was it any less insightful? I didn’t find it to be. It’s this contrast, my dearest little readers, that got me thinking... How many of us can watch a 30 second video, just one video, without loud music and an explosion of dopamine-hitting colours at every turn?
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