Lingering

Pato Hebert’s solo exhibition Lingering addresses the COVID-19 condition of long hauling, in which ongoing COVID symptoms persist well after the initial infection. The varied and extensive symptoms of long COVID are an underrecognized yet widespread aftermath of the pandemic. Hebert became sick with COVID-19 in March 2020. Three weeks after the test, his body was not following the narrative circulating in the media, as he kept getting worse and new symptoms continuously arose. Exhibited at Pitzer College Art Galleries from January 22 to April 16, 2022, Lingeringfeatures four distinct yet interrelated bodies of new photographs, sculptures, and text works. A total of 84 individual pieces emerge out of Hebert’s own long-hauling experience and pandemic timespace.

The first is the photographic series that echoes the exhibition’s name, Lingering. Hebert prints images of everyday objects onto silk charmeuse, emphasizing both the physical precarity and the subtle, accumulating marks of the pandemic. The sculptural installation No Silver Lining also reflects such pandemic affective chronicle. Twenty-six nickel-plated surgical masks, each from a separate medical appointment, line the gallery in a timeline that testifies to the relentlessness of long COVID. Counter Measures, a series of hand-carved wooden spoons, links Hebert’s personal labor with the wider “spoonie” community (a term used by people with chronic illnesses or disabilities who identify with the Spoon Theory, This theory uses “spoons” as a metaphor to represent the limited amount of physical and mental energy a person has available for daily tasks and activities). Another one of the text works is Talking in Circles. It spells out a quote by Donald Trump from early in the pandemic: “It’s going to disappear. Someday— it’s like a miracle—it will all just disappear”, providing critiques on the state’s mishandling of the pandemic.

Place also plays a vital role in Hebert’s practice. Elysian Park in Los Angeles, the place Hebert tested positive in a parking lot in Elysian Park, is crucial to Herbert’s COVID experience and also his healing process. It becomes a central motif and a quiet thread throughout the exhibition. At a time when bodily experience was often abstracted, pathologized, the exhibition speaks directly to those living with long COVID and chronic illness, while also urging broader publics to confront the inadequacies in healthcare, language, and empathy that the pandemic revealed.