Art critic reflects on pandemic's impact on exhibition access and artworld tolerance

The pandemic has fundamentally altered how art is experienced, with gallery closures in Berlin preventing physical access to exhibitions. Tracey Emin's 1997 exhibition at the South London Gallery titled 'I Need Art Like I Need God' serves as a reference point for the author's changing perspective. Without regular gallery visits, the artworld's flaws—including financial inequality and exploitative behavior by gallery directors—become more apparent and less tolerable. The Instagram account @cancelartgalleries documents anonymous complaints about gallery practices, while galleries continue expanding into luxury locations despite public disinterest. Physical exhibitions provide irreplaceable haptic experiences that cannot be replicated through digital reproductions or online viewing, even for artists like Tacita Dean who work with analogue media. The art system's financialization enriches some while leaving many art workers impoverished, creating contradictions for politically engaged art. Viewers traditionally endure the artworld's problems for occasional "peak experiences" described by psychologist Abraham Maslow, but pandemic restrictions have disrupted this cycle. Germany's botched vaccine rollout has extended gallery closures, creating withdrawal symptoms for regular exhibition-goers. The author acknowledges that despite the artworld's many issues, engaging with compelling art remains essential enough to tolerate the surrounding "bullshit."