This exhibition features three artist projects made during the spring and summer of 2020—an unprecedented season that witnessed an expanding worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and protests across the country calling for racial justice sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The projects, supported by and acquired by the Tang Teaching Museum, include Isaac Scott’s protest photographs from Philadelphia; Danielle St. Laurent’s portraits of families in quarantine through the windows of their homes; and MASKS4PEOPLE’s silkscreened face masks created in collaboration with sculptor Nicole Cherubini’s installation at the Tang.
Pandemic and Protest includes oral histories with the artists and new writing by Skidmore faculty and staff about the works. We are grateful to all whose words are included here, especially our colleagues who offered their personal reflections on this historic moment.
Additionally, Skidmore students wrote short responses to these projects after meeting with and interviewing the artists in September 2020. It is our hope that this exhibition will demonstrate how we can act to support artists, to document and preserve historic moments as they happen, and to serve as a repository and archive of primary-source material for future study and research.
Ian Berry, Dayton Director, Tang Teaching Museum
Marta Brunner, College Librarian, Scribner Library