The Story of Art Without Men

by Katy Hessel

Today, the world seems to be moving faster than it is turning: consumed by social media, with news stories released and forgotten at an unsettlingly rapid pace; more economically, politically and socially divided than in the lifetimes of previous generations; a deafeningly threatening climate crisis; major cuts to the arts; and an awareness that we will be dealing with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and Putin’s warmongering for decades to come. Where does the world stand in the 2020s, and what is the role of art, and the artist? In previous historical crises art changed drastically: following the Second World War artists turned to abstraction and performance – perhaps to make sense of the events witnessed – and at other times, such as the AIDS epidemic, artists came together to campaign for the visibility of neglected and disregarded communities.