confined artists - free spirits
Photographs from Lockdown - Lux Magazine
I woke up on April 1st 2020 to another Groundhog Day determined to initiate an original creative endeavour, out of confinement.
Art and photography are my greatest passions, so I decided to freeze-frame this epic moment in history, by inviting visual artists to share their thoughts and wisdom for a larger community of spirits, similarly confined in space and time, but not in mind.
Artists have always been visual philosophers and recorders of history. Today, more than ever, they have the potential to give heart and inspiration, where needed and desired.
As such, I have had the privilege to ‘virtually’ photograph these searching minds, presently bound by their private and intimate spaces. For this series of artist portraits, although limited physically by social distancing guidelines, I was aided by technology, and so I used FaceTime and WhatsApp to capture my subjects, in mind and in soul, with careful prior planning and dialogue – sometimes sharp, and at times blurry, bound by the realities of WiFi logistics. Intimate and searching moments, frozen in history.
This has been an emotional journey, given the extraordinary challenge humanity is facing. It has also been a personal journey of rediscovery, into what makes each one of us tick; what makes us rise in the morning and fall into slumber at night, and where we go, and what we do, in between. It is in times such as these that Malraux’s Human Condition and Sartre’s Existential Anguish take a whole new dimension of their own.
It is my hope, that these images and accompanying poetry, reveal very personal, delicate and emotional moments; honest and forthright, direct and inspiring, intermingled with the pain of sorrow borne by each one of us, for threats new and unforeseen. But most importantly, it is my sincere belief that these are messages of hope and renewal.
What seems to be a common thread in all of the interviews, is the desire for us all to come together, to seek a better self, and to make a better world. One depends on the other, and our futures on them both. Setting aside differences and individual prejudice is vital, if we are to survive this moment in history, and face the future challenges which no doubt await us.
Artists and activists, thinkers and doers, we can each make our contributions by widening the streams of positive thinking and action. Life is complicated enough, let’s try for a little cheer with a creative bent.
As my favourite poet and song writer Leonard Cohen wrote: ‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’.
And the light will get in. Of that, I have no doubt.
Maryam Eisler
London, April 10, 2020
Some of the world’s greatest artists photographed in lockdown by Maryam Eisler
LUX Contributing Editor and artist Maryam Eisler has been photographing some of the world’s greatest artists over FaceTime and WhatsApp for LUX. As the project evolves, our online exhibition Confined Artists – Free Spirits: photographs from lockdown by Maryam Eisler will grow, accompanied by musings from the likes of Marina Abramovic, Larry Bell, George Condo, Eric Fischl, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Marilyn Minter, Shirin Neshat and Laurie Simmons. Below, LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai introduces Maryam’s brilliant and original oeuvre, and Maryam herself muses on her inspiration, after which we present her works in all their raw and un-retouched digital glory.
The lockdown around the world is having an unprecedented effect on every aspect of human life. Many people have lost their jobs or have seen their businesses imperilled. Others feel helpless as they see the suffering and sacrifices around them.
In such times, the raison d’etre of creativity and artistry comes under scrutiny: who can have time for anything unrelated to the clear and present danger caused to humankind by these strands of self-replicating RNA?
But creativity is part of what it is to be human. Somewhere in our DNA (itself a complex remake of the same nucleic acid that is coronavirus) is a program for the unique human desire and ability to create art, and appreciate aesthetic, for its own sake. Some of the greatest artistic creations in our history, from the temples of the Nile to Picasso’s Guernica, have emerged from horror and hardship. Artists cannot stop creating, even if the art world, that very contemporary construct, has temporarily stopped working.
When Maryam Eisler, one of our contributing editors, called me with an idea, a couple of weeks into lockdown, I knew it would be worth listening to. An artist and author, Maryam is the archetypal peripatetic global art world citizen: born in Iran, educated in France and the States, resident in London.
Maryam said she had started a project photographing her favourite artists as screenshots on FaceTime and WhatsApp. I said it would be an honour to run her project as an online exhibition, and also in the pages of our summer 2020 print edition. The project gained momentum, to what you see here today: some of the most celebrated artists in the world, captured in a casual moment, on a phone, and unedited. A true sign of our times. Over to you, Maryam.
Darius Sanai, Editor-in-Chief, LUX magazine