Andrea Blum

On May 25, George Floyd, an African American man, was killed by a Minneapolis policeman for having a counterfeit $20 bill. Police brutality is imbedded in the history of the United States, and in recent years has seen the death of many black and brown young men and women. These injustices have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement flamed by income inequality and foreseeable unemployment. George Floyd’s death has incited demonstrations throughout the US with thousands of citizens protesting racial injustice, gathering in close proximity to each other. Statistics show that Covid-19 has infected a proportional majority in the black and brown communities.

Last night, throughout New York City there was violence by the police, some rioters and fringe groups brought in to incite disruption. In the neighborhood where I live many of the stores were looted, and, as of now, buildings are boarded up in anticipation of what is to come.

Postscript

On May 12, I ended my Corona Diary after 2 solid months of entries, why did I stop?

For an artist, how an idea starts and when you have finished is the age-old question of how do you know when you are done. More honestly, when are you bored with the thought of continuing, and when does it become not fun, but a chore. The Diary began as a way to entertain myself and feel centered at a moment when time became an abstraction and days seemed endless. It added an activity and gave a momentary focal point, even for a few minutes.

For me making art (generally) is a way to investigate a specific circumstance. I approach it with the aesthetic “tools” I come with, coupled with my interest in having it be a trigger for a more complex analysis having to do with “us” in relation to our being part of a larger social system. It is a game of manipulation, where I manipulate an image, a hunch, a thought into becoming something “real”. Not surprisingly, it is both as difficult as it is engaging, and is an endless fight against self-indulgence, aesthetic impulse, and sense of lack.

All this is to explain my reason for stopping. I stopped wanting to think about where we were, and wanted to start thinking about a future since the present is too unreal for me to understand. As of May 23^rd, 5.5 million people have been infected worldwide, and 340,000 people have died.

First published in June 2020