It’s August; an attempt at a fall culture season beckons, somehow, but a sense of great fragmentation persists. On Instagram I see artists and culture workers in Europe behaving more or less normally for the season — that is to say, on vacation. Elsewhere, new horrors have taken over — as in Beirut, where in the wake of a cataclysmic warehouse explosion, artists are sifting through the rubble of devastated gathering spaces and galleries.
And then there’s the United States, where symptoms of collapse are all over the culture, and maybe also, hopefully, some signs that we can build a society with more mutual care once we emerge. It’s hard to avoid doomscrolling. Yet amid the algorithm’s torrential spew, beauty still insists on breaking out — in images and insights that honor our communities as we all try to push through, and ones that remind us of other places and possibilities.
Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin
@_kwasi_b and @thepublicwork
The Los Angeles photographer Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin interprets his city through the broad streetscapes and utilitarian low-rise architecture in which the working-class and immigrant people who keep the place functioning proceed through the day. It’s a local’s look, keen to the poetry of auto-body shops and money-transfer agencies, to signs that hang askew and beat-up vehicles and always the sharp, unyielding sunlight. Before the coronavirus crisis, Mr. Boyd-Bouldin was not photographing people directly as much as seeking their traces, like an archaeologist, in his stark cityscapes. But on the second account he has put up this year, @thepublicwork, you’ll see people — his kind of Angelenos, those just getting by — as they navigate their ordinary chores in this terrain. These “snapshots from the lost world,” as he calls them in one brief essay, are reminders of community. “Our casual interactions with one another were a reflection of the human condition in its purest form,” he writes. “It’s one of the most valuable aspects of daily life taken from us by this pandemic.”
Community Access Art Collective
@artcollectivenyc
Some 40 artists in multiple mediums make up the Art Collective at Community Access, an organization in New York that provides housing and support services for people living with mental health conditions. Some are highly trained working artists with decades of material; others have found in the studio a fresh, vital outlet. The work can be stunning, like a recent collage by Zeus Hope incorporating vintage newspaper with a jazz solo’s serrated energy, or the paintings of John Smith themed on the New York City subway. The pandemic has meant restrictions on studio work for a group that, in the last year, has been increasingly visible with exhibitions, both physical and online; fortunately, its Instagram feed continues to share not only the art (and links to an online gallery for pieces that are for sale) but also glimpses of this dynamic crew’s productive life and rich individual stories.
The White Pube
@thewhitepube
When Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente started The White Pube, their caustic but dead-serious criticism platform, they were students at Central Saint Martins, the art school in London, who had come face to face with the art world’s political and institutional biases. Five years later, the duo, based in Liverpool and London, have grown a big following without sacrificing their rollicking, text-messagey style, nor their rigor and curiosity. This is accountability work, often lambasting major British museums and celebrity artists, but fundamentally constructive, with care for community arts organizations and underrepresented voices. The pair, and occasional co-conspirators, have a rich archive of criticism on their website, but their Instagram feed is a great point of contact. Britain is their main arena, but their perspective travels nicely.
Diptyk Magazine
@diptykmagazine
Based in Casablanca, Morocco, the bimonthly Diptyk is a rare bird in today’s media landscape: a high-quality art magazine from the global South that has managed to go the distance since it began in 2009. The perspective is both Moroccan and cosmopolitan, covering artists and events across Africa and the Mediterranean basin. What I appreciate about regional publications like this one is the way they reorient my perspective, shifting the center away from the usual hubs of global art and finance. Diptyk is published in French, and you won’t find it on American newsstands, but its Instagram feed is a rich resource for art discovery, elegantly selected with lots of links to explore.
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
@zeitzmocaa
The Zeitz MOCAA, in Cape Town, opened in 2017 in a spectacular converted granary, with the aim to become Africa’s top contemporary-art venue. After wobbly beginnings, a leadership overhaul brought in the star Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh to run the place, and with her, sharper programming and fresh energy. The coronavirus has hit South Africa hard, shutting museums indefinitely, but Zeitz MOCAA has been busy online, offering digital panels, children’s activities and even dance parties. And Ms. Kouoh and her team are keeping the intellectual flame burning with an excellent series of Instagram Live interviews with fellow curators from across Africa as well as with artists like Wangechi Mutu, archived on the museum’s YouTube channel.
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August 12, 2020 at 11:18PM
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Five Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now - The New York Times
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