‘It’s An Artist’s Job to Bear Witness’: Why Marc Quinn Is Turning Screenshots From the News Into Splashy and Enormous Works of Art

Everyone has their own way of
keeping track of time during lockdown.

Like many artists who have been
throwing themselves into
their work, UK artist Marc Quinn is no exception. Since
the lockdown began in mid-March, the YBA artist best known for
putting pints of his blood into a sculpted bust of his own head has
been creating a striking visual diary of the unfolding public
health situation through a series of paintings. Every day, from
isolation in his London studio, the artist has been scouring
the web for news, and creating semi-abstract paintings from
larger-than-life prints of the articles that speak to him.

These so-called “Viral Paintings” are the newest phase of the
artist’s ongoing “History Paintings” which began in 2009 and looked
at how current events are communicated through the media—offering
an in-real-time look at history in the making. While earlier
examples have consisted of paint strewn over hyperreal paintings of
press photography, this newest iteration is painted on top of
blown-up screenshots of news articles the artist takes on his phone
to reflect the accelerated pace of
the online news cycle.

“What’s important to me is
engaging with one of the most significant stories of our time, in
real time,” Quinn tells Artnet News. “To me there is a very strong element of
performance and ritual in the creation of these works.” After
spending several hours reading morning news stories, he prints out
a couple of two articles and then spends the next two or three
hours painting. He has completed around 20 paintings. “Afterwards
I’m completely exhausted,” he says.

Pages from a variety of media
sites including the New York Times and Artnet
News feature in the series. “I choose the articles depending
on my reaction to the news on any given day,” Quinn says.
Particularly important to his choices are the photographs included
alongside these stories, such as the powerful message of hope
that was projected onto Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue
this April.

The artist explains that he was
inspired by a longstanding tradition of art-making during periods
of crisis, including Goya’s “The Disasters of War” series that was
created during the Peninsular War in the early 1800s. Quinn says
the work is also a nod to Picasso’s paintings that came out of
Paris during World War II, as well as works made by the
German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon during the Nazis rise to
power in Germany and their subsequent occupation of
France.

“These eye-witness series feel
so much more important to me than what was created in recollection
years later,” Quinn says. “I feel it’s an artist’s job to bear
witness to the time that we live in.”

While Quinn has been busy
creating his own artistic record, the artist feels there has been a
“missed opportunity” from the government to encourage other artists
to track the crisis, through historic programs like the “official
war artist” initiative that engaged artists to create a visual
record of the country throughout periods of war in previous
centuries. “Brilliant artworks were made by hundreds of artists,
these works now serve as an incredible archive of that period,” he
says. “I’d love to see the government doing something like that
now.”

Quinn plans to eventually sell
the series and donate 10 percent of the proceeds to the UK’s
National Health Service and the WHO. Before that, however, he hopes
to see them shown in a museum. “Ideally, given that they are
documenting this period of shared experience, I’d love for them to
be seen by the public,” he says.

The post ‘It’s An Artist’s Job to Bear Witness’: Why Marc
Quinn Is Turning Screenshots From the News Into Splashy and
Enormous Works of Art appeared first on artnet News.