The Hall Art Foundation is pleased to announce Doomscrolling, an exhibition of woodblock prints by the New York-based artists Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston to be held at its galleries in Reading, Vermont from 11 May – 1 December 2024. An addictive compulsion, doomscrolling is described as the act of spending an unintentionally excessive amount of time actively seeking out and reading negative or depressing news online. In this series of 18 woodblock prints, Sidhu and Swainston culled imagery from the mainstream media to depict 18 moments between 24 May 2020 and 6 January 2021. The date of each work is tied to now-iconic images and specific events, and altogether form a portrait of the United States during the time of Covid, Black Lives Matter protests, the events leading up to the 2020 election and the infamous day of the insurrection at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Like many of us, Sidhu and Swainston experienced life in 2020, a tumultuous period of isolation and political and social unrest, by consuming images and news on their smartphones. “We were just like everyone else, obsessed by consuming images of it. […] The show really comes out of our own ‘doomscrolling’ […] It was an experience of terror through viewing the media of it all.”

As the basis for their prints, Sidhu and Swainston used plywood boards collected from the storefronts of shops and institutions throughout New York City that had been shuttered in 2020 during the pandemic quarantine. “All of a sudden, plywood went up on buildings around the city and then I realized the potential of it: Letting something that happened in 2020 be carved onto the plywood used to cover up Manhattan.” Sidhu and Swainston used these distressed plywood boards, covered with graffiti, and weathered by the elements as the basis for their prints. The oldest printmaking technique and means of mass communication, woodblock prints have a historical legacy of being used to champion the voice of the people, fueling anti-authoritarian movements of social change for centuries. Each of the 18 days in the series is represented as a montage of images. In addition to contemporary images, Sidhu and Swainston also incorporate art historical references in their compositions such as rays of light from Albrecht Dürer, hands from Käthe Kollwitz and heavy shadows from Edvard Munch. 

The compilation of pictures and text overlaying each other create the effect of scrolling through a computer screen or mobile device. January 6 (2021) stacks images of police and the mob of pro-Trump rioters storming the US Capitol in Washington during insurrection. May 26, 7 PM (2020-2021) presents images of the first Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd. July 4 (2020-2021) depicts images of protesters and supporters of the monument to Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia before its removal together with a view of Mount Rushmore where Donald Trump delivers a speech. Each work is a visual and ideological pastiche of conflicting views, physical violence, and meanings. In the context of the 2024 United States presidential election, the way that we look at and remember these images continues to evolve. Rather than being fixed in the past, Sidhu and Swainston’s recirculation of these powerful images prompt our ongoing consideration and assessment of important issues in this country that remain unresolved. 

Hall Art Foundation
544 VT Route 106
Reading, VT 05062
United States
 

For more information and images, please contact the Foundation’s administrative office at info@hallartfoundation.org.