Life Under the Pandemic Moon: Virtual Exhibition

Life Under the Pandemic Moon is a virtual exhibition organized by renowned artist and League instructor Hugo Bastidas. The exhibit invites artists in the community to reflect and respond to the current global health crisis. Bastidas’ paintings frequently reference architecture, water, vegetation and art history, and reflect his concern about the human condition, globalization, and their effect on the Earth’s well-being. Selected works will be shared in a virtual gallery on LINEA, The League’s online journal.

More about the exhibition:
Life Under the Pandemic Moon is an ongoing show about the artistic reflections of the New York City metro area’s experience under the coronavirus pandemic. This is the first installment. As this pandemic moves into our region, cities, communities, neighborhoods and homes, The Art Students League is asking for submissions that address personal experiences directly reflecting our state of existence under this extraordinary phenomenon. We encourage participants to consider those aspects of their daily lives that have been altered one way or another. For example: Are we kinder to one another? Have we become more concerned about one another?

Many of us have gone through denial, fear, anger, acceptance and resolution as the ramifications of this pandemic become clear. Ultimately, we may become better humans towards one another, our planet and the splendor that is life.

It is our hope that you will consider sharing visually your encounter with this occurrence. As an additional aid to our participants: please consider subject matter versus content. The subject matter is the coronavirus pandemic — yet this is an overwhelmingly huge topic; thus the content may be overwhelmed. Instead, perhaps address a personal connection or reflection about an aspect of this phenomenon. For instance: social distancing is the subject matter; however, the content may vary insofar as the depiction of the persons, their facial expressions, the attire, the distance between them, the atmospheric depiction, and so on. Hopefully by considering that personal vantage point as the content, you will share the aspects we too may feel but cannot articulate — and now you’ve made this accessible for us to see.

Hugo Xavier Bastidas is an American artist. He received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and his MFA from Hunter College. His awards include a Robert Smithson Scholarship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Pollack-Krasner Grant and a NJEA Grant. He is represented by the Nohra Haime Gallery, where he has had 16 solo shows. Other solos exhibits include those at the Gyeongnam Museum of Art, Gallery KunstDoc, and Bonn Gallery. His digital artwork was represented by Gallery Boreas (Lenox, MA and Reykjavik, Iceland) and had been included in the DiVA shows (in Paris, Cologne and NY) and the AAF (NY). He is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Design and is represented in their collection among other collections public and private nationally and internationally. He represented the US in the Cuenca Biennial (Ecuador, 1999) and the Sharjah Biennial (UAE, 2001). His work is in collections worldwide.