In art: Remembering what social life looks like
A selection of three pictures, each representing groups of people and gatherings, provides an opportunity to think about what was so good – and a little less good – about our social life. By Rory Tsapayi
When were you last in a big group of people? What does it feel like to remember that now? What stands out? Maybe it’s the physicality of other bodies around you, warm and moving and alive. Or it could be the smells, the variety of scents from everyone’s perfumes, hormones, workout schedules and preferred soaps.
On that note, when was the last time you smelled someone new?
This question comes to mind looking at this wonderful group of New Yorkers painted by Mimi Gross, 23 at the time, a young artist in America’s busiest city. She emphasises the 11 women’s chic and dazzling outfits, a quintessential expression of the modernist fervour of the moment when it was all about pop and colour and new-new-new!
Dressed to impress in their brightest florals and boldest patterns, it seems – to this writer at least – likely that each had spritzed a striking scent before their modelling session in bustling Lower Manhattan. Take a moment to imagine the range of perfumes… Doesn’t the central, smirking figure wear something bright and citrusy? This is the power of art: It allows our imaginations to roam free and “feel” the experience in ways we can all relate to differently.
This painting, dazzling with colours and pattern, reminds us what it was like to dress up and “look nice” for friends, for colleagues, for the world.
Imagining what the women might think of each other’s outfits as well as each other, one looks at the figures more closely and a new mood comes into view. Indeed, many of the faces are straight and stiff, the women are arranged together but disconnected, distant even. There is something forced and awkward about this group. It’s worrying, as if something is about to happen, another clue for our fertile imaginations.
An image by 25-year-old Tyler Mitchell, a photographer based in Brooklyn, helps to make sense of our current moment of connection across distance. For a still picture, the sense of movement is incredible. Seven Hula Hoopers are captured mid-spin on the sports courts of a public park. The markings and cracks on the sun-soaked court break up the picture into sections of colourful rings and circular shadows that keep the eyes looping around the frame. This dynamism extends through the bare and outstretched arms of the figures who are doubled in silhouettes on the ground; together the group stirs up the picture, the uniform yet individuated actions creating a sense of cohesion among the group.
As the nation is now able to stretch its limbs outdoors but physical distancing remains the strategy of choice to control the spread of Covid-19, Mitchell’s photo takes on new resonances that the photographer could never have predicted. The spacing out of the subjects and the plastic rings that encircle them are an apt visual metaphor for our current moment. The Hula Hoops feel like the more visible social-distance we now all need to respect, the borders on a Zoom call and the walls of our houses, firm boundaries in which we must be contained, even as we try to keep spinning to stop things from falling to the ground. But we are moving together, even if kept apart.
South African-American painter Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi captures this sense of unity in her arresting composition of dozens of spectators which exists between abstraction and figuration. She has created a busy pattern of flat colour patches in a range of browns and neutral tones with pops of coral, pastel yellow and sky-blue; the crowd becomes a singular form with no individual standing out. In spite of their facelessness, their nervous anticipation is clear. They lean in, their attention fixed on a spectacle outside the frame. Some hold anxious hands to their faces, one figure even holds a pair of binoculars to his unpainted eyes, intent on seeing every detail. The group is watching gymnastics but this painting leaves space for the viewer to imagine any type of captivating spectacle.
It’s easy to identify with the audience, to insert oneself among an unidentified mass watching the world still battling Covid-19. These days it is hard to look away from the news, which is alternately dreadful, inspiring, hopeless, and mundane. It seems with every development we take a collective breath, reform our opinions, and lean in for a closer look at the crisis. Despite the physical distance, we are a crowd during the pandemic, unified around a common experience, moving and feeling through uncertainty together.