The Impact of Covid-19 on the Art Worlds

Abstract

This article looks at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the “art worlds” (Becker 1988) in Geneva, Switzerland’s second largest city. The main objective is to determine whether the pandemic has radically reconfigured the art worlds, or if this health crisis has merely reinforced existing trends, namely the market logic that underlies the art sector and the ever-increasing need for artists to develop entrepreneurial capacities. By examining the discourses of artists and cultural institution managers, this study focuses on two periods: the first one following the first wave of Covid-19 in the summer of 2020, and a second one taking place after the second wave in the spring of 2021.