Artists Transformed the New York Times Cover of the Names of Those Who Died From Covid-19 Into a Mass Visual Protest of Trump’s Golf Habits

This past weekend, the New York Times devoted the
entire cover of its Sunday edition to a partial listing of the
nearly 100,000 people in the US who have died from the novel
coronavirus.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump went
golfing at his course in Virginia to celebrate Memorial
Day weekend—and it prompted a fury of artistic responses.

Illustrator Steve Brodner put out the
call on Twitter for a “mass art protest idea,” asking artists to
draw Trump playing golf on top of the New York Times‘s
list of names, below the headline “US Deaths Near 100,000, an
Incalculable Loss.”

“It was an idea that I wanted to do myself. Then I thought, it
was so straight ahead, everybody should do it. Golfing against the
backdrop of profound loss and grief,” Brodner told Artnet News in
an email. “It tuned out it was something people really wanted to
do. And they came through beautifully.”

The artist Marcel Dzama contributed a delicate watercolor
illustration, taking care to ensure that the names remained legible
beneath the paint.

“I was so gutted and moved by the sheer enormity of all of those
names of people who had died of this virus that I wanted to make
something. I couldn’t sleep, and working helps me,” Dzama told
Artnet News in an email. “We look to our leaders to guide us when
we are helpless, and when I looked to ours, he was playing golf. It
was beyond disrespectful to all of the lives lost.”

“The enormity of the loss is hard to grasp. What does 100,000
dead even look like?” Brodner wondered. “The Times gave it
a shot with this idea. Our refinement holds the list, while
highlighting the failure of the White House to lead.”

Brodner has also been memorializing the dead in an ongoing
series called “MISSING.” Each day, he posts a new drawing on
Instagram of someone who has died from the virus. But as the death
count has risen, the effort has come to feel like a drop in the
bucket.

Before his election, Trump was highly critical of the golfing
habits of his predecessor, Barack Obama. “President Obama has a
major meeting on the NYC Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from
all over the country, but decided to play golf!” he once
tweeted.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised, “I’m going to be working
for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” In reality,
he’s been on the links far more often than Obama
ever was, 266 times as opposed to just 98 to this point in
their tenures, according to CNN.

But criticism of Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis goes
deeper than just one golf outing.

“It is important to tell the truth,” said Brodner. “Trump has
shown incompetence, carelessness, ruthlessness in lying, and a
complete lack of empathy at a time of severe crisis for the
country. Many are dead because of inaction in the face of the
emergency.”

See more artworks based on the Times cover
below.

The post Artists Transformed the New York Times Cover of the
Names of Those Who Died From Covid-19 Into a Mass Visual Protest of
Trump’s Golf Habits appeared first on artnet News.