Sarah Waldorf - Off the Walls: Inspired Re-Creations of Iconic Artworks

OFF THE WALLS INSPIRED RE-CREATIONS
OF ICONIC ARTWORKS With a Preface by
Sarah Waldorf and Annelisa Stephan GETTY PUBLICATIONS, LOS ANGELES Contents
Preface
Sarah Waldorf and
Annelisa Stephan In March 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic brought life as we knew it to a halt. Much of the world retreated to a solitary life at home. Working remotely, we and other Getty colleagues asked ourselves how art could be a tonic for people through these uncertain times. Our community asked for fun, distraction, and education, tooand thus the art re-creation challenge was born. The prompt? Pick a favorite artwork, find three objects in your house, re-create the artwork with those items, and share with us online. Re-creating art is a long, venerable, delightfully wacky tradition, from the tableau vivant to the museum selfie.

For this challenge, we took inspiration from the Dutch Instagram account @tussenkunstenquarantaine, which translates to between art and quarantine, but we added a Getty twistwe invited you to draw on our Open Content Program, which offers thousands of high-resolution images of art for free. Other museums around the world issued similar challenges to their followers, as did libraries, schoolteachers, and theaters, inviting kids and adults alike to look closely at book covers, film posters, album art, stamps, and more. Millions of you saw our challenge posted on social media. Millions more saw it on the news. In a matter of weeks, we received hundreds of thousands of artwork re-creations from around the globe. They were clever, hilarious, and poignant, and they were often served with a dash of social commentary.

You re-created Jeff Koons sculptures with socks and restaged Jacques-Louis David paintings with fleece blankets and duct tape. You MacGyvered costumes and backdrops out of towels, pillows, scarves, shower caps, coffee filters, bubble wrap, andof coursetoilet paper. You posed in your living rooms with extended family, alone with your best selfie sticks, in the hospital break room with fellow healthcare workers, and in studios with dramatic lighting. And you celebrated others re-creations, applauding the creativity and resilience of friends, family, and Internet strangers. Van Gogh and Vermeer were popular sources of inspiration, especially The Starry Night (done to perfection with spaghetti and cleaning products) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (restaged with selfies, grandma, puppies, even corn). Grant Woods American Gothic captured the socially distant mood.

Munchs The Scream was a favorite for people of all ages, and even looked good rendered in jam on toast. We are endlessly grateful for the Internets embrace of this challenge. It speaks to the power of art to bond us together. Art invites us into the experience of others and connects us with our shared past. In isolation, a sense of community is sacredand were over the moon that this challenge connected so many fellow art lovers around the world. Enjoy.

Isaac Israels
Girl Reading on a Sofa, 1920 Ramn Casas
Decadent Young Woman: After the Dance, 1899 Claude Monet
Camille Monet and a Child in the Artists Garden in Argenteuil, 1875 Sbastien Louis Guillaume Norblin de la Gourdaine
Saint Paul in Athens, 1844 Diego Rivera
The Flower Carrier, 1935 Jean-Franois Millet
Gleaners, 1857 Jean-Franois Millet
The Angelus, 185759 Grant Wood
American Gothic, 1930 Jean-Honor Fragonard
The Swing (detail), ca. 1767 Emanuel Leutze
Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851 Unknown Artist
The Paston Treasure, 1663 Unknown Swiss Artist
Initial G: The Virgin, Saint Elizabeth, and the Infants John the Baptist and Christ (detail), ca. 1300 Kitagawa Utamaro
Hairdresser (Kamiyui), ca. 179798 Mary Cassatt
The Childs Bath, 1893 Gustav Klimt
The Three Ages of Woman (detail), 1905 Gustav Klimt
The Kiss, 19078 Jacques-Louis David