Ongoing Coverage of COVID-19’s Impact on the Art World

Parks and museums in Beijing—including the former home for China’s emperors, the Forbidden City—began reopening today after being shut down for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The historic complex will reopen under drastically different guidelines, allowing 5,000 daily visitors as opposed to its usual 80,000. Beijing’s parks are also adapting to new precautionary measures, allowing visitors at 30 percent of their normal volume. Read more.

The Smithsonian Institution, which is made up of 19 museums as well as the National Zoo, will cut the pay of more than 90 senior-level executives in order to avoid furloughs after it projected $22 million in losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more.

Some galleries and small museums in France may begin to reopen as early as May 11th, as the COVID-19 lockdown begins to lift in parts of the world. According to a report in The Art Newspaper, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe shared first-step plans in the country’s “deconfinement” strategy yesterday in parliament. The date of reopening will vary according to location, and gatherings of more than 10 people will be prohibited. Read more.

The board of directors of Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado projected a 70 percent loss in income from its ticket sales, boutique, cafeteria, catalog sales, audio guides, and space rentals. The museum is the latest institution to detail the financial hardships caused by COVID-19. Read more.

The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) shared plans to remain open after announcing last month that it may close permanently after the spring semester. The school will continue to graduate students this spring and summer, but will suspend academic degree programs in the fall while continuing to offer on-site and digital studio art classes, public education programs, and grant-supported exhibitions and conservation projects. These changes are part of a campaign “to reset and reinvent” the school’s business model, according to an SFAI announcement. Read more.

Responding to the economic uncertainty precipitated by COVID-19, Art Basel detailed a contingency plan in the event that their two upcoming fairs later this year are cancelled. In a letter sent to participating exhibitors yesterday afternoon, the leading global art fair, which exhibits in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, and Basel, Switzerland, addressed “unprecedented dilemmas” and uncertain times. Read more.

More than 400 artists, musicians, actors, and other members of the U.K.’s cultural community have signed a letter urging the country’s government to support cultural institutions and industries that are struggling to stay afloat amidst the economic hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. Signees include , , Jonathan Pryce, PJ Harvey, and Johnny Marr. Read more.

Museums throughout Italy and Belgium will begin reopening in mid-May as governments gradually begin to lift COVID-19 lockdowns. Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has developed plans to reopen the country’s museums, libraries, and cultural sites beginning on May 18th. Meanwhile, Antwerp’s Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (MHKA) announced plans to reopen its doors on May 19th, following guidelines from the National Security Council. In addition to the MHKA, the six museums that make up Brussels’s Royal Museums of Fine Arts are also slated to re-open. Read more.

The emergency relief fundArtist Reliefhas released findings from its new survey assessing how artists are impacted by COVID-19, and the results paint a bleak picture, with 95 percent of respondents reporting loss of income due to the pandemic. Read more.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art laid off more than 80 employees on Wednesday, roughly a quarter of its visitor service and retail staff. The cuts were announced Wednesday morning in a letter to employees that also revealed its initial projection of a $100-million shortfall had grown to $150 million. The letter added that executive staff would receive pay cuts upwards of 20 percent to help the museum weather the COVID-19 crisis. Laid off employees will be paid through the first week of June. Read more.

Museums in some German states will reopen their doors in the coming weeks, as the COVID-19 lockdown is slowly lifted. The openings will require strict new safety and hygiene measures, which may contribute to a slower reopening process for some smaller museums. With much of the world still on lockdown, the art community is closely observing the efficiency of these new measures to gain a better understanding of the future of the art landscape. Read more.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is considering cutting the budget for the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) by about 35 percent as part of a plan to stem the roughly $7.4 billion shortfall in tax revenue the city is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The DCLA cuts, totaling around $75 million, would be part of a proposed executive budget that is around $6 billion less than the preliminary plan introduced in January. Read more.

Artists confined during the COVID-19 pandemic are being commissioned to make art on their balconies. An initiative launched by L’Internationale (an international coalition of seven museums) and dubbed “Artists in Quarantine” will feature 16 artists from around the world creating artworks on their balconies. Read more.

British artist has created a hopeful new artwork to support the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Titled Butterfly Rainbow (2020), the work depicts a rainbow with each band of color filled with butterfly wings, a common motif in Hirst’s oeuvre. The cheery image can be downloaded from the artist’s website and placed in people’s windows as a show of appreciation for the staff at NHS. Read more.

Christie’s has expanded its spring sales schedule with a new weekly series of timed online auctions, including a charity benefit featuring photographs by . The auction, titled “Andy Warhol: Better Days,” will feature 60 unique photographs by the iconic artist, each of which accentuates “the splendor of the outdoors and the simple pleasures associated with human interaction,” according to a press release. Read more.

Galleries in Germany are carefully preparing to reopen their doors over the next few weeks as the government begins to lift business restrictions in the wake of COVID-19. These reopenings will come with strict precautions including a visitor limit and facemasks. Read more.

The notoriously elusive street artist debuted his latest work in a rather peculiar place: his bathroom. With much of the world on lockdown due to the COVID-19 crisis, artists like Banksy have been forced to get innovative with their artistic practices. The artist posted photos of the new artwork on his Instagram page yesterday with the caption: “My wife hates it when I work from home.” Read more.

The universally beloved artist shared a powerful message of resilience in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a poem addressed to the whole world, she calls for unity to weather our period of upheaval. Read more.

Dubai’s arts district, Alserkal Avenue, has waived the next three months’ rent for its galleries and businesses in response to the economic fallout of COVID-19. The rent waiver will be accompanied by a Pay it Forward program, which will grant subsidies to businesses proposing initiatives supporting their neighbors, including barter-for-service programs, charitable donations, and the hiring of freelancers. According to Alserkal’s director Vilma Jurkute, all businesses within Alserkal Avenue have already been granted subsidies, and more initiatives are being discussed. Read more.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will provide nonprofit art organizations with emergency funding via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Out of the recently approved $2-trillion national stimulus plan, $75 million has been allocated to the NEA. Read more.

Pace Gallery furloughed 25 New York employees last week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The employees, accounting for approximately a quarter of Pace’s New York staff, were told their positions would be furloughed until at least mid-August, reports ARTnews. Higher-level staff have taken temporary pay cuts as well, though the amount is unspecified. Read more.

Seven U.S. art grantmakers—including the Academy of American Poets, Artadia, Creative Capital, Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), MAP Fund, National YoungArts Foundation, and United States Artists—are launching a national emergency relief fund for artists affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Beginning today, theArtist Relieffund will distribute unrestricted grants of $5,000 on a continuing basis over the next six months. With $10 million already raised, the fund will provide support to U.S. artists with financial need during the pandemic. Read more.

Billionaire entrepreneur and art collector, Adrian Cheng, will bring free medical-grade surgical masks to Hong Kong’s citizens. In the coming weeks, his “Mask to Go” initiative will install 35 vending machines at 18 locations throughout Hong Kong to give out high-quality masks. The dispensers will be managed by eight Hong Kong-based NGOs including the Lutheran Church, the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association. Cheng announced the initiative in an Instagram post. Read more.

The Museum of Modern Art, New Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art are among the institutions impacted. Read more.

The J. Paul Getty Trust is committing $10 million to a COVID-19 relief fund to support nonprofit art organizations and museums in Los Angeles. The L.A. Arts COVID-19 Relief Fund was announced on Thursday and will be administered by the California Community Foundation (CCF). It will give emergency operational funding and recovery support for smaller and mid sized arts nonprofits based in Los Angeles County; the Getty is encouraging other organizations and individuals to contribute to the relief fund. Read more.

The New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG) has rescheduled its eagerly anticipated exhibition “Kusama: Cosmic Nature” for spring 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The show, which was originally scheduled to open on May 9th, will bring together multiple installations across the NYBG’s 250 acres, along with seasonal floral displays from horticulturists. Read more.

Sotheby’s furloughed 12 percent of its staff—roughly 200 employees—in response to the financial effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the art market, the Wall Street Journal reports. Employees in the U.S. and U.K. who have not been furloughed will receive a 20 percent pay cut until June 1st, and executives will take an additional 10 percent reduction. Overtime pay has also been temporarily suspended. Read more.

The Foundation for the Visual Arts will provide $1.6 million in emergency grants to artists affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The foundation is teaming up with partner organizations in its Regional Re-granting Program to distribute individual artist grants of $100,000 to artists in 16 U.S. cities; the funds may be used to help cover everyday expenses like food, rent, medical costs, and childcare. Read more.

Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth will be donating 10 percent of all online sales profits to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. It is the first measure being taken as part of the gallery’s new philanthropic #artforbetter initiative. Read more.

Frieze New York will completely refund booth fees for the nearly 200 exhibitors that were set to participate in the fair before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ARTNews reported that refunds will be paid out over two periods—half on May 20th, and half on June 20th. Frieze will also refund other advance payments exhibitors may have made, including deposits and construction fees. Additionally, exhibitors have the option to roll over refunds into payments for the 2021 edition of the fair. Read more.

Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) announced a new emergency relief grant to help artists directly affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The newly developed program allocates $250,000 in grants at up to $2,500 per person to artists who “have experienced financial hardship from loss of income or opportunity as a direct result of the crisis,” according to AWAW's press release. Women-identifying visual artists over the age of 40 can apply for the grant directly on NYFA’swebsitefrom April 6th through 8th. Read more.

Museums and art schools in California and New York are donating supplies to hospitals facing shortages of protective equipment in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. Read More.

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, museums around the country have begun to lay off large portions of their staff. On Tuesday, Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) notified all 97 of its part-time employees as well as those involved in the museum’s Contemporary Art Start educational program that they would be let go. UCLA’s Hammer Museum laid off 150 part-time student workers the same day. Read More.

Art Basel has pushed its marquee expo in Basel, Switzerland, back by three months due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The fair, which typically takes place in late June, will now run from September 15th to 20th at its usual venue, Messe Basel. The decision was reached, according to Art Basel, “in close consultation with a wide range of gallerists, collectors, partners, and external experts,” in an attempt to insure not only that all parties involved remain safe and healthy, but also to make sure they all feel sufficiently secure to travel to the fair. Read More.

U.S. museums have begun to push for a federal arts bailout as the country continues to weather the economic and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, which has projected $100 million in losses due to the shutdown, launched a social media campaign, #CongressSaveCulture, petitioning the government for $4 billion in support “for financially at-risk non-profit arts organizations” to be included in the $2 trillion stimulus package currently working its way through Congress. Read More.

Over the past two weeks, the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy has spent more than AED 1.5million ($408,314) acquiring works of art by both established and emerging Emirati artists. This gesture of solidarity with the nation’s artists comes after the COVID-19 pandemic led to the disruption and cancellation of major local art events, including the postponement of Art Dubai. Read more.

Following the most recent guidelines set in place by Australian government officials due to COVID-19, the Biennale of Sydney is closing its public exhibitions indefinitely as of March 24th.The biennial will now be viewable online through a partnership with Google, allowing audiences around the world to engage with the exhibition through the Google Arts & Culture platform. Read more.

As art schools across the country shutter studios and classrooms and shift to online courses in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, students have banded together to demand tuition reimbursements. Artforum reported that more than 100 graduate students from the Yale School of Art have called on the school to provide a partial tuition refund in a letter addressed to the school’s president Peter Salovey and dean Marta Kuzma. Read more.

Christie’s and Phillips have announced new, consolidated dates for their biggest May sales afterrevealingearlier this week that the majority of their spring auctions would be postponed. Christie’s will combine its London and New York auctions of Impressionist and modern and post-war and contemporary art into a consolidated 20th Century Week, which will take place at the firm’s New York location from June 23rd to 26th. Phillips similarly combined its New York and London 20th Century and Contemporary Art sales into one week of auctions, scheduled for the week of June 22nd at its New York complex. Read more.

TheNew Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is petitioning New York City government officials to provide relief for artists, art galleries, and art workers, all of whom have been heavily impacted by the spread of COVID-19. Following the precautionary measures set in place by the city, galleries, exhibition spaces, and nonprofits have had to temporarily close their doors, and, consequently, cancel or postpone programming. Read more.

As the spread of COVID-19 slows in some East Asian countries, cultural institutions and galleries are cautiously reopening their spaces and making plans to relaunch their public programming. Read more.

The Metropolitan Museum of Artprojected $100 million in losses resulting from the museum’s closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a letter leadership sent to department heads on Wednesday. The institution, which closed last week after two employees showed symptoms of the virus, may not reopen until July. Read more.

The 2020 edition of the Frieze New York art fair, originally slated to run from May 6th to 10th, has been canceled due to the rapidly worsening COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, officials in New York estimated the state’s number of cases will likely continue to increase for another 45 days (or until May 1st). On Wednesday, with the pandemic’s extended timeline becoming clearer, the organizers of the fair announced the 2020 edition of Frieze New York has been canceled. Its public art component, Frieze Sculpture, will take place at Rockefeller Center at an as-yet undetermined time in the summer. The fair is also currently developing an online viewing room platform. Read more.

Sotheby’s has updated its spring auction schedule and closed the majority of its offices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight auctions have been postponed, including the Hong Kong spring sales and a run of Paris auctions originally set for late April, while 17 will still run as scheduled. Most of the still-running sales are either online or London-based; the design sale, scheduled for March 31st, will take place in New York as planned. Sotheby’s London office will also remain open to the public, and its Hong Kong office will be open by appointment, but the auction house’s offices in Dubai, Geneva, Milan, New York, Paris, and Zurich are all closed until further notice. Read more.

TheTatemuseums group—the largest conglomerate of art institutions in the U.K. gathering Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St Ives—are closing through at least May 1st due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Tate’s trustees and director, Maria Balshaw, decided to close “for the welfare of all our visitors and staff.” Read more.

London’s National Gallery has decided to postpone its upcoming exhibition due to heightened fears surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally set to open on April 4th, this will be the first ever major U.K. exhibition of the Baroque master’s work. According to The Art Newspaper, gallery staff emphasized that the show will go ahead, but stated that “due to the rapidly changing worldwide situation we cannot currently give a specific date.” Read more.

Christie’s and Phillips have postponed the majority of their upcoming spring sales indefinitely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sotheby’s, meanwhile, has yet to announce plans to close any of its galleries, salesrooms, and offices, or reschedule any of its auctions. Read more.

The forthcoming editions of Art Brussels and Art Cologne have been postponed as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens. Both of the fairs were originally set to run concurrently, from April 23rd to 26th; Art Brussels has been pushed back to run June 25th to 28th, while Art Cologne will run from November 19th to 22nd. In Brazil, the forthcoming edition of SP-Arte, set to run from April 1st to 5th, has been suspended without a reopening date. Read more.

Some of New York’s largest and most renowned cultural institutions announced they will temporarily close to curb the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The museum closures— including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New Museum, Frick Collection, Jewish Museum, The Shed, and others—came after cities in Europe, and others around the world, called off their regularly scheduled programming. Read more.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will temporarily close all three of its locations—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters—starting in order to help contain the spread of COVID-19 in New York. The museum did not announce when the closure would end, but said it plans to “undertake a thorough cleaning,” and will announce further plans. Read more.

The inaugural edition of the Paris Photo New York fair has been postponed due to growing concerns over the spread of COVID-19. The fair, originally scheduled to open April 2nd on Pier 94 in Manhattan, will take place at a later date that is still to be determined. The Dallas Art Fair has also postponed its 2020 edition, originally slated to run April 16th to 19th. The 12th edition of the Texan fair will now take place from October 1st to 4th. Read more.

Art Basel in Hong Kong was one of the first major art world events canceled as the COVID-19 outbreak worsened last month. The fair’s organizers subsequently said they would offer exhibitors the opportunity to showcase the works they’d intended to bring to Art Basel in Hong Kong through new online viewing rooms, for free. Art Basel announced the 231 dealers who’ve taken them up on that offer. All works in the fair’s online viewing rooms will be listed with either a specific price or a price range—their total value exceeds $250 million, according to Art Basel. Read More.

The 2020 edition of the TEFAF Maastricht art fair, which opened to VIPs on March 5th and to the general public March 7th, will close four days before its planned conclusion amidst growing fears regarding the COVID-19 epidemic. The Dutch art fair came to the decision in consultation with the city of Maastricht, the venue MECC Maastricht, and local health officials, and after it was revealed that an exhibitor who’d attended the fair last week had subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. Read more and hear from people on the ground.

The Italian government decided to close all the country’s state-run museums and cultural sites, from the Pompeii archaeological complex to the institution hosting one of the year’s most anticipated exhibitions. The nationwide closure is set to last until April 3rd. Read more.

The Louvre has reopened its doors following conversations between museum management, union officials, staff, and the Ministry of Health, after concerns about the COVID-19 outbreak forced the Paris museum to close for 2 days. Read more.

Art Dubai announced that the 14th edition of the art fair, set to take place from March 25th to 28th, will be postponed due to growing concerns about the coronavirus. The event will take on a new format instead and focus on holding a smaller lineup of events and exhibitions focused on the local arts scene. Read more.

The 33rd edition of the TEFAF Maastricht art fair will still open as scheduled, but several exhibitors have dropped out over coronavirus fears. The fair’s decision to continue comes amid increased tension over how the international art market will handle the spread of the disease. Read more.

Staff members of the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, have voted to close the institution’s doors indefinitely as fears surrounding the coronavirus continue to rise. Read more.

Museums in Venice, Turin, and Milan have closed as a result of the recent outbreak of COVID-19 in northern Italy. Seven Italian regions have been directed to close their museums, including Lombardy, which is home to most of the more than 200 individuals infected with the virus in Italy. The ministry of culture has also revoked free entry to state museums throughout the country, which is normally offered on the first Sunday of every month. Read more.

Sotheby’s is relocating its marquee spring auctions in Hong Kong to its New York City headquarters amid fears of the growing coronavirus epidemic. The move will impact the house’s evening sale of modern art and its evening and day sales of contemporary art, all now due to take place April 16th in New York; the rest of the planned Hong Kong auctions have been postponed until the first week of July. Read more.

Art Basel will launch online viewing rooms in March timed to what would have been the 2020 edition of their Hong Kong fair, which was canceled earlier this month amid fears about the coronavirus outbreak. The first iteration of the initiative will run from March 20th to 25th; all the galleries that had signed up for this year’s Art Basel in Hong Kong have been invited to participate for free. Read more.

Following weeks of pressure stemming from the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in China and, before that, the ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, Art Basel’s parent company MCH Group announced on Thursday that it is canceling the 2020 edition of its Hong Kong fair. Read more.

Gallery Weekend Beijing will either postpone or cancel its 2020 edition due to concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in China. The organizers said they will make a final decision by March 15th. Read more.

After international exhibitors called for the cancellation of Art Basel in Hong Kong due to the coronavirus outbreak, local galleries are rallying around the fair organizers and the region’s arts scene. The Hong Kong Art Gallery Association, comprising over 50 Hong Kong-based galleries, released a statement defending Art Basel and saying that overseas galleries are misinformed about the situation on the ground, in part due to sensational media reports. Read more.

Exhibitors at Art Basel in Hong Kong have asked the fair to cancel its upcoming eighth edition in March due to concerns about the fast-spreading coronavirus. Read more.

Museums in mainland China and Hong Kong are shutting down indefinitely as part of the efforts to contain the deadly coronavirus. In Hong Kong, all facilities overseen by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD)—including the Hong Kong Museum of Art—will be closed from January 29th onward, according to a notice on LCSD’s website. Read more.