COVID-19: LABOR CAMP REPORT

WORKS BY PIOTR SZYHALSKI

MARCH 6 - 30th, 2024

STATEMENT

On March 24, 2020, in direct response to the global coronavirus pandemic, artist Piotr Szyhalski created his first COVID-19: Labor Camp Report. What started as a single drawing slowly morphed into a daily practice, a way to reconcile and record the thoughts, feelings, and change being wrought in the world. These ink drawings and hand-lettered texts were shared daily by Szyhalski on Instagram, poignantly capturing our politically fraught and painful landscape over the course of 225 days. Accompanied by powerful captions by the artist, the series operates as both a witness to the current crisis and a container of time, time that is both labored and lost.

These daily dispatches shared with thousands via social media platforms, serve as a way of witnessing, processing, and recording the complexities of life during the first eight months of the global COVID-19 pandemic. At times harsh and confrontational, other times quiet and contemplative, the Reports map multiple layers of interwoven historical phenomena: from the global health crisis, economic inequities, and the uprising following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police to environmental catastrophes and the waning days of the autocratic regime in the United States.

The series COVID-19: Labor Camp Reports comprises 225 posters, hand drawn by Szyhalski daily from March 24 to November 3, 2020.

In addition to the initial presentation on social media platforms, the Project also functions as a set of original drawings and printed posters.

About the artist

Piotr Szyhalski is a Polish-born and trained multimedia artist working in the United States since 1990. The Minneapolis-based artist’s wide-ranging practice encompasses an array of media and genres, including drawings, posters, prints, photographs, painted murals, interactive digital media, sound art, installation, and performance. His multilayered works explore extreme historical phenomena, communication/exchange, and the relationships between the individual, society, history, and time. In 1998 he established Labor Camp, an ongoing art project guided by the motto “We Are Working All The Time!” 

In addition to a major survey exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis in 2022, his work has been exhibited at museums around the world, including the International Center of Photography, New York; MOCA Cleveland; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; San Jose Museum of Art; ACC Galerie, Weimar; ICA Gallery, Winnipeg; LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón; steirischer herbst, Graz; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; and in his home city at the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

Szyhalski’s work is in the collections of KADIST (Paris/San Francisco), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and others. Recent artist monographs include COVID-19: Labor Camp Report (Frank, 2021) and Piotr Szyhalski: We Are Working All the Time! (Weisman, 2020). He is the 2021–2022 contributing artist to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, New York, and a professor of media arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. 

laborcamp.org weareworkingallthetime.org

@laborcamp