Abstract

CHUECA, José Gabriel. Photographs of what is not in NYC. The notion of ruin in visual representations of New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic. Desde el Sur [online]. 2020, vol.12, n.2, pp.631-656. ISSN 2076-2674.  http://dx.doi.org/10.21142/des-1202-2020-0035.

In this article, I propose a relationship between the modern notion of ruin and a set of specific photographic representations of New York City during the first two weeks of impact from the Covid-19 pandemic. The body of images analyzed is composed of a group of pictures published on the front page of The New York Times during March 2020. This set of pictures has been chosen as representative of a photographic genre that I call «pictures of what is not there», characterized by the depiction of city landmarks emptied of people as a direct consequence of the pandemic. To analyze the common aspects of the aforementioned genre and the depictions of ruins popularized in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries -the early modern period- I resort to Aby Warburg’s notion of «visual survivals», identifying anachronistic cultural recurrences that are key to our reflection upon the present moment.

Keywords : New York City; pandemic; New York Times; visual culture; images; photography; ruins; Warburg; Simmel; Piranesi; art.

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