{"id":162508,"date":"2020-09-29T16:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2020\/09\/29\/artists-may-be-used-to-suffering-but-coronavirus-has-taken-it-to-extremes-bidisha\/"},"modified":"2020-09-29T16:00:11","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:00:11","slug":"artists-may-be-used-to-suffering-but-coronavirus-has-taken-it-to-extremes-bidisha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=162508","title":{"rendered":"Artists may be used to suffering \u2013 but coronavirus has taken it to extremes | Bidisha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Creativity does not offer any magic protection from the economic consequences of the pandemic \u2013 but we have to put health firstI know artists are meant to suffer for their art and die alone in a garret, but this is ridiculous. Cinemas are open, but numbers are drastically down. Theatres and live venues teeter on the edge, balancing health risks and financial risks, trying to plan against possible lockdowns and impossible-to-predict futures. An email from a contact at a major gallery last week informed me that visitor numbers are 80% down from what they should be. The Royal Academy\u2019s Summer Exhibition \u2013 bumped back so it is now called the Winter Exhibition \u2013 has just opened, but it won\u2019t be the annual crowd-pleaser it is usually.I am not romantic about art. The damage to the \u201ccreative industries\u201d is not more important than damage to other areas of economic life. I don\u2019t think everyone who calls themselves an artist is owed time and space to express themselves, and enjoy career-long critical attention and a good living just because they have creative urges. But the overwhelming majority of arts projects are not associated with huge venues and big-name impresarios. Instead, they are fragile, freelance, contingent affairs. For every film, play or exhibition that doesn\u2019t happen, there is a huge cohort of producers, technical crew, creative artists and venue staff from sound mixers to bartenders and security who don\u2019t get employed. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/sep\/29\/artists-may-be-used-to-suffering-but-coronavirus-has-taken-it-to-extremes\" target=\"_blank\">Artists may be used to suffering \u2013 but coronavirus has taken it to extremes | Bidisha<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creativity does not offer any magic protection from the economic consequences of the pandemic \u2013 but we have to put health firstI know artists are meant to suffer for their art and die alone in a garret, but this is ridiculous. Cinemas are open, but numbers are drastically down. Theatres [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}