Coronavirus or not, priceless art pieces are surrounded with layers of protection; all play their part in making sure artifacts from varied chapters of the human story remain preserved and available for maximum benefit to current and future generations.
Though we have gone over some aspects of art preservation in light of this pandemic, let’s end on a more upbeat note: art is an act of creation not just preservation. It is a constant, ever-evolving, dynamic, and inescapable facet of our lives. Someday, what we might consider as goofy pop culture, sick vulgarity, the enemy’s propaganda, or pretentiously elitist frivolity may be art to an audience whose perspective of our creation we can hardly imagine.
Whereas covid-19 imposed isolation and quarantine is concerned:
“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.” – Thomas Mann.