Mexican-born Montreal multimedia artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. He believes he was infected in New York during the Armory contemporary art fair.
Posted on March 25, 2020 at 8:00 a.m.
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Promoter of the concept of relational architecture, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was ironically a victim of these social interactions which are the basis of his thought. One of a handful of visual artists from Canada with international notoriety, he announced on his Facebook page on Monday evening that he had just learned that he had been infected with COVID-19.
He had taken the test on Saturday because he was coughing a lot and had a fever. As a precaution, the 52-year-old artist, who is asthmatic, placed himself in confinement two days after his return, on March 7, from New York where he had spent three weeks.
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–PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer in front of his interactive digital work Colorimeter, integrated in 2018 into the architecture of the lobby of Maison Manuvie, in Montreal.
–PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, in May 2018, during the installation of his work Vicious circular breathing.
–PHOTO DAVID BOILY, THE PRESS
The work 33 Questions per minute (33 questions per minute), by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in 2018.
–PHOTO DAVID BOILY, THE PRESS
Spiral pulsations, one of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s works exhibited at the MAC, in Montreal, in 2018.
–PHOTO ANDRÉ PICHETTE, THE PRESS
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, in 2014, on the occasion of the launch of his installation Pulse Room, at the MAC, in Montreal.
–PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
A luminous work by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer had animated the Place des Festivals, in Montreal, in October 2011.
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–“I think I was infected at the Armory Art Fair,” he said in a telephone interview with Press. I spent a lot of time with a commissioner from Istanbul who I spoke to two weeks later and who told me she had tested positive for COVID-19. “
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer had however been careful in New York, because he had a “normal” flu. He is also delighted that three of the assistants from his studio who accompanied him have not had symptoms so far. Since his return to Quebec, he has been living at home in a separate room, separated from his family, who are also in quarantine, but without having any symptoms.
“I’m starting to get better. Like I told my wife, I’m still young! But I’m still in bed for two weeks. I strongly believe in the importance of quarantine. “
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer praises the Quebec health system.
I have found that it is a very good system, with a lot of attention to people, a lot of information and a lot of detail.
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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
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The artist has also decided to be part of a clinical study that has just launched the Montreal Heart Institute to verify the effectiveness of colchicine, an anti-inflammatory that could prevent complications arising from COVID-19.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer continues to work on his computer and keep in touch with his team of 15, but he had to put his studio in lockdown on March 15. He did not do it out of heart. “Culture is a very sensitive sector, but I had no choice,” he says. My assistants are young and fit, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Ironically, the Armory Art Fair was a success, as I sold four works there. ”
Four works represent a beautiful nest egg. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and his team create large-scale performative or interactive installations, as we saw during his exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, in 2018.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, PRESS ARCHIVES
Flag zoom (Amplification pavilion), one of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s works presented at the MAC, in Montreal, in 2018.
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For the coming weeks, several of his exhibitions around the world have of course been postponed, including one in Washington, Speaking Willow, which was due to open in May and another, Unstable Presence, which was scheduled to debut April 25 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, postponed hopefully until July.
“My artistic approach is to bring the world together, so this crisis inspires me a bit,” he says. I think what saddens me the most is seeing that people cannot attend the funerals of their loved ones. This is the case in Spain, where I lived and where I have a lot of friends. Art is useful, I imagine, for grieving, remembering, and coming together. After the crisis, a real idea of solidarity will have to emerge, something that we tend to forget in our consumerist world. Because COVID-19 affects everyone, anonymous people like artists or millionaires. She puts everyone on the same level. “
> Visit Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s studio website: http://www.lozano-hemmer.com
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