Like many people, I first saw Piotr Szyhalski's daily COVID posters on my phone. So witnessing them in person — full-sized, side-by-side, wallpapering an entire gallery — was overwhelming.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art exhibition, which opened last week, collects the posters Szyhalski drew each day for 225 days, responding to the pandemic as it unfolded in our homes, in our hospitals and in our politics.
The Polish-born, Minneapolis-based artist didn't take a break, sketching, drawing, photographing and posting new black-and-white posters to his Instagram page @laborcamp. Step inside this third-floor gallery and the scale of that commitment becomes clear.
In recent months, Szyhalski's drawings have been shown at the Rochester Art Center, the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington and in the windows of the Minnesota Museum of Art in St. Paul. Volunteers have also pasted them to utility boxes, brick walls and bus shelters in cities across the country.
The Mia exhibit displays Szyhalski's drawings in chronological order, left to right, allowing visitors to trace the COVID crisis from its early days until the November election. His first is dated March 24, 2020, and I can think of no better way to reflect on the pandemic's one-year mark on Minnesota than by seeing the project wheat-pasted onto Mia's walls.
Read our story about the posters here.
Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168 • @ByJenna
