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Can art help fight the coronavirus?

Artist Carrie Mae Weems brings her nationwide RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! campaign to Dallas and Fort Worth.

Artist Carrie Mae Weems combined her creativity with public-health messaging for the new...
Artist Carrie Mae Weems combined her creativity with public-health messaging for the new campaign.(Rolex/Audoin Desforges)

Can art contribute to the fight against COVID-19? A national campaign by MacArthur “Genius" Award winner Carrie Mae Weems, brought to Dallas by a consortium of local museums, makes a strong effort to answer that question, while also striking a blow against the perceived elitism of the art world.

RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!, a nod to the recommended 6 feet of social distancing, combines Weems' artistic creativity with public-health messaging delivered through a variety of channels. Although the most visible elements of the project are the more than three dozen billboards in Dallas and Fort Worth, in both English and Spanish, and the posters on the sides of buildings — including at Ash Studios and Art Tooth — it also encompasses the distribution of reusable cloth face masks and promotional items such as bags and buttons.

Weems' project originated in Upstate New York, where she is artist in residence at Syracuse University. This is her latest stop in an accomplished international career that includes the first retrospective exhibition given by New York’s Guggenheim Museum to an African-American female artist.

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Across the country, people of color have been hit hardest by COVID-19, with a death rate over three times as high as that of white people. This dismaying fact motivated Weems' impassioned intervention. Enthusiasm for her vision has spread the project far beyond Syracuse — billboards have also gone up in Atlanta, Savannah, New York City, Philadelphia and Detroit.

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A banner at DART's MLK rail station reminds us that life is beautiful, in spite of the...
A banner at DART's MLK rail station reminds us that life is beautiful, in spite of the pandemic.(Nan Coulter / Special Contributor)

To bring this project to Dallas-Fort Worth, the curatorial team, representing eight institutions and led by Laurie Ann Farrell of the Dallas Contemporary, took careful note of which local neighborhoods have suffered the most from COVID-19, to determine the best sites for the billboards, mask distribution and posters. In Dallas, the resulting map shows a heavy emphasis on South Dallas and Oak Cliff.

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Few other artists could have envisioned, or pulled off, this project as well as the 67-year-old Weems, whose work combines crisp elegance with approachable humanity. Although her practice branches off in many directions, its center is photography, the medium in which she trained at California Institute of the Arts and the University of California San Diego, and which forms the core of the billboards. Her 1990 “Kitchen Table Series” turns humble domestic life into timeless, classic scenes, while her 1995 appropriation of historical racist daguerreotypes forces viewers to face up to the wounds of the past.

Posters for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems at Ash...
Posters for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems at Ash Studios in Dallas.(Nan Coulter)

Aesthetically, the billboards manage to combine a sense of great urgency with friendly warmth and a can-do, optimistic spirit. The stark palette (composed solely of black, white and bright red) and bold, sans-serif typeface communicate that this is not a joking matter, while the text gets a few key points across in a benevolent, no-nonsense manner.

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For example, one billboard reads “LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!!” in bright red capital letters, across a black-and-white photograph of a joyful woman. To the right of these words, a list of polite but firm instructions says: “STAY SAFE / IF POSSIBLE / STAY HOME / WASH YOUR HANDS / COVER YOUR FACE.” Another billboard features a photo of six artists holding hands in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, encouragingly captioned in black and red: “DON’T WORRY, WE’LL HOLD HANDS AGAIN.” This billboard design is also on display at AT&T Performing Arts Center.

Whereas artists like Félix González-Torres and Jenny Holzer created billboard art subversively, as a platform for cunning ambiguity, and James Rosenquist transmuted his sign-painting experience into elite museum art, Weems' work is completely direct and easily grasped, as befits the public health emergency. There is no time for being artsy or coy, one might argue, when so many people are dying. This project also reveals a certain degree of modesty on Weems' part — almost no one who drives past the billboards will know that an artist is responsible, as her name only appears in small letters at the bottom of each frame.

Will it work? The large roster of collaborators and sponsors of the project is impressive evidence of a cooperative spirit in Dallas, mobilized on behalf of vulnerable local communities. On the other hand, many Americans today do seem skeptical and distrustful of authority and “official” messages. It’s all too easy to find examples of large crowds of people brazenly flouting social-distancing rules and to conclude that the battle for public health is lost.

Still, all one can do is try, and Weems makes a fine effort. In a time of isolation, distancing and fear, a reminder that “LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL” is very welcome.

Details

“Carrie Mae Weems: RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!” is presented by a consortium of major museums in Dallas and Fort Worth, led by Dallas Contemporary. Poster installation and materials distribution will continue through the end of the year. For more information and a list of billboard locations, go to dallascontemporary.org. To sign up for an Oct. 3 virtual discussion on the project, hosted by The Dallas Morning News, go to dmndownloadvirtual.dallasnews.com. Artist Carrie Mae Weems will be joined by André Leon Talley, former American editor-at-large of Vogue magazine.

A poster for the "RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!" public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems calls...
A poster for the "RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!" public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems calls attention to coronavirus safety measures in Deep Ellum.(Nan Coulter / Special Contributor)
Poster for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems in the...
Poster for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign by artist Carrie Mae Weems in the Fair Park neighborhood in Dallas.(Nan Coulter)
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Button for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign.
Button for the RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public art campaign.(Nan Coulter)
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