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Mar 12, 2020
News
Paris Photo New York and the Dallas Art Fair were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visitors to the AIPAD Photography Show at Pier 94 in 2019. Photo by Elvert Barnes, via Flickr.
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.
Kelly Cornell, the director of the Dallas Art Fair, said in a statement: “While the decision was not made easily, the health and wellbeing of the Dallas Art Fair’s gallerists, visitors, and staff are our top priority and the fair must make every effort to contain the spread of the virus.”
Michel Filzi, the president of Reed Expositions France—which organized Paris Photo New York in partnership with the Association of International Photography Art Dealers—said in a statement:
With 178 exhibitors confirmed, this first edition has had an overwhelming welcome from the photo art galleries and editors. We were all very excited to launch this first edition of Paris Photo New York in March, and to build another bridge in the art scene between our two continents. However, the health and well-being of exhibitors, visitors, sponsors, media representatives, cultural institutions and our employees from around the globe is and will always be our first priority.
Other cancelations, closures, and postponements in New York state—which now has more than 200 confirmed cases of the virus—include the private museum Magazzino Italian Art, which is closing its doors from March 12th to 26th; and the auction houses participating in New York’s Asia Week sales have postponed the majority of their auctions from mid-March to mid-June.
The 2020 LA Art Book Fair, scheduled to take place April 3rd to 5th at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art, has been cancelled. In Europe, museums and fairs continue to shut their doors. On Wednesday, after an exhibitor tested positive for COVID-19, the TEFAF Maastricht fair cut its 2020 edition short.
The Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid has closed, along with other state-run museums like the Museo Reina Sofía and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona will close Friday, while the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao will remain open for now.
On Sunday, the Italian government decided to close all state-run cultural institutions and historic sites through April 3rd as the number of coronavirus cases in the country surged. Austria followed suit with similar nationwide museum closures.