Maya Gurantz reveals new display: The Plague Archives
Photo by Amy Suh
The de Saisset museum in collaboration with artist Maya Gurantz revealed and introduced a new display, “The Plague Archives,” on Jan. 30. The display, featuring collected work from the 10th all the way to the 21st century, highlights the history of disease and human perception of it. Gurantz features photography, drawing, music, video and more in her multidisciplinary and beautiful display, up now through June 14. The result is stunning, thought-provoking and intriguingly horrific—an important aspect of the story.
Maya Gurantz is a multidisciplinary and research-based artist. She encompasses many different kinds of media in her work, from drawing to photography to video. From her website, "My work interrogates social imaginaries of American culture and how constructions of gender, race, class and progress operate in our shared myths, public rituals and private desires." Additionally, she has worked in filmmaking and has a Master of Fine Art from University of California, Irvine.
As museum director Ciara Ennis highlighted at the show's reception, the de Saisset is shifting to a new vision of art highlighting transhistorical and interdisciplinary work, and Gurantz's display is the first in this fresh focus.
In discussing her work—which highlights human reaction to plague, documentation of disease, government instruction, the long days of pseudoscience and the new days of germ theory— Gurantz noted the importance of the COVID-19 pandemic on her vision for the exhibition. She recounted the first week of quarantine, when she posted a picture of a plague doctor, dawning the caption “#ThePlagueArchives." And so, her project began.
In her remarks, she focused on history, perspective shifts, productions of whiteness and perceptions of scapegoats through disease. It is clear from her storytelling that the consumer's ability to "feel history in [their] body" is important to her and a driving motivation to tell a human story through disease and plague.
When asked what she hopes students will get out of seeing her show, Gurantz said, "I hope it's about finding ways to hold history or live with history…being with you as you're going about your day. So, finding ways to be present to history. History is always with us. History is right now." The display is full of both social and biological history and shows just how much disease has been a part of the human story throughout time.
Guarantz’s work in The Plague Archives is detailed and sprawling. So many aspects of history are encapsulated in her displays, from raw pictures of skin conditions to short films and fanatical pictures of plague iconography. Her annotated bibliography, explaining all pieces included in the exhibition, provides a lens into her reason for choosing each and every one of the hundreds of pieces of media. The experience is truly immersive, with interactive works allowing you to draw, listen, and truly feel yourself as a part of history—as Gurantz intends.