Art Exhibitions During the Pandemic

Abstract

Along with other sectors and fields, art environments were also faced shutdowns during the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was caused by a type of coronavirus that affected the whole world and resulted in a new period during which people had to work from home and adjust their lives accordingly. In this period, many of the exhibitions were continued online. The prolongation and uncertainty of the period made it necessary to present online exhibitions with more realistic solutions. And this created a new trend towards virtual reality applications that offer closest experience to reality. Virtual reality exhibitions became a notable alternative to online exhibitions in a lot of respects such as allowing typical curatorial arrangements as well as adding digital methods, and making the audience feel like they are actually visiting an exhibition. However, it obviously causes overcrowding and loss of aura as a result of a phenomenon based on excessive display in structures open to the participation of everyone. In order to preserve the aura of art and exhibition and to maintain its compatibility with new technologies, it’s necessary to introduce new curatorial understandings, new aesthetic perceptions, and new quality elements. In this study, the existence of art exhibitions in online environments, especially during the pandemic, will be evaluated within the context of qualitative descriptive analysis.