The Post-Pandemic Art Exhibit: A Surprising Virtual Experience

Holly and Waldo describe their unique collaborative journey, creating exhibitions featuring artists aged 50 and older at a prominent Long Island museum.

Click here to listen to the 45-Forward podcast episode.

Complete episode description:

When the pandemic shut down most of America last year, the arts and entertainment community was faced with a monumental challenge. How could they survive without attracting in-person audiences to their events? Surely, they could try to create online facsimiles of their events—virtual tours, exhibitions, concerts and performances—but would these activities be dynamic enough to attract broad interest from the public? That’s when Holly Gordon and Waldo Cabrera came up with a provocative new approach to the virtual art show. In today’s episode, Holly and Waldo describe their unique collaborative journey, creating exhibitions featuring artists aged 50 and older at a prominent Long Island museum. Holly, a nationally recognized fine art and documentary photographer, served as curator of these exhibits, which were sponsored by AARP New York. Waldo, an award-winning journalist with years of experience in advertising, marketing and video production, handled the many technical tasks. The resulting presentations are no mere pictures at an exhibition. Together, Holly and Wally tell the story of how they pieced together an assemblage of images, music, graphics, narration and commentary from dozens of artists into a cohesive, entertaining experience. “I’m the composer, Wally is the conductor who interprets the work,” says Holly. Both artists also stress the importance of the arts across the generations. Holly has long been an ardent advocate for older populations. And Waldo regularly bridges the generations through his years of work with film and video productions for children, including 4Kids Entertainment, the company that brought Pokémon to the United States. Indeed, their next exhibit focuses on intergenerational collaboration among artists. “We’re all 6-year-olds,” says Waldo. “We’re using art the same way. It’s entertaining, it has elements of surprise. It’s a roller coaster ride.”

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