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Faculty member Piotr Szyhalski will launch his new book COVID-19: Labor Camp Report at the Mia.

On March 23, 2020, then-President Trump proclaimed, “America will again and soon be open for business—very soon.” The following day, Szyhalski got to work. The result was COVID-19: Labor Camp Report, 2020, a series of 225 posterlike drawings done in black-and-white ink; a new one was made every day, all the way through Election Night.

Organized chronologically, the COVID-19: Labor Camp Report book features lushly printed, large-scale images of each drawing, including never-before-seen sketches, newly commissioned essays, and reflections on the work, as well as all the artist’s texts written as part of his daily Instagram posts. The book embodies Szyhalski’s ceaseless and diligent practice, one that continues to provoke, confront, comfort, and inspire its audience.

Taken together, the COVID-19: Labor Camp Report drawings produce an uncanny sense of the fleeting nature of shared experience. Perhaps this is not surprising for Szyhalski, who was born in Poland in 1967 and grew up amid general strikes, the country’s Solidarity movement, and the collapse of state Communism. Just as the sting of those upheavals has faded with time, so too can artworks fade: Posters can be ripped down, museums sacked, collections burned. But what endures in Szyhalski’s work is more powerful than any single object—art’s ability to connect, organize, and heal us in the here and now.

Book Launch: Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp’s COVID-19: Labor Camp Report
Sunday, August 15
Mia (Minneapolis, MN)
Conversation: Pillsbury Auditorium, 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Book signing: Fountain Court, 2:00–3:00 p.m.
This event is free; registration is required. This conversation will also be live-streamed on Zoom.

Learn more

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  (artforum.com—August 2021)