Art in the Time of COVID-19

By Dr Elizabeth Robles, Lecturer in Contemporary Art, School of Humanities

This year we celebrate 116 years since the inception of the Autumn Art Lecture series. Conceived in 1905 as an important platform for Art and Art History in what was then University College Bristol’s academic year, the series has become an annual highlight in the cultural life of the University and the city beyond. Over its lifetime, it has hosted luminaries from Kenneth Clarke, EH Gombrich, Toshio Watanabe, David Olusoga and Laura Mulvey to artists Denise Mina, Paul Gough, Richard Long and Ingrid Pollard, and explored themes ranging from the monstrous to the celestial. A true survivor, the series has only been interrupted twice – first as the Second World War erupted and, more recently, in 2020 as the world locked down amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Sick Call, from Illustrated London News (Matthew James Lawless)

To mark the series’ return from its pandemic-related hiatus, the Autumn Art Lecture Committee is delighted to announce this year’s lectures, brought to you by the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts in partnership with Bristol Ideas. ‘Art in the Time of COVID-19’ – an online series – will bring together leading artists, scholars, and museums professionals to reflect on the impact of pandemics on the ways in which we create, engage with, and think about art and art-making.

Over three online lectures, we will consider the longer history of art and diseases, the ways in which artists have reckoned with and worked through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the new possibilities that opened up as we were forced to reimagine the form and function of our museums and galleries amid enforced closures. We will look to the past – from the Black Death to the Third Plague – to provide context to our present as we begin to imagine what the future might look like for artists, collections and the publics they serve.

Find out more about each event and book your free tickets here:

Episodes and Contexts (Thursday 18 November at 18:30)

Museums and Collections (Thursday 2 December at 18:30)

Artists in Practice (Thursday 9 December at 18:30)