Friday, January 1, 2021

National Geographic: When the world reopens, will art museums still be there?

By Christine Spolar

    In March, museums across America closed as the stay-at-home orders set in.
"The year 2020 has been a time of crisis, innovation, anxiety, and introspection for all businesses, especially museums. Large galleries in cities with reliable international tourism found travel bans nearly ruinous to their business models. Smaller regional museums discovered a surprising upside as their institutions emerged as symbols of good, collaborative creativity in their communities."

    Some museums have become more popular for local residents as they come to museums for a hint of normalcy. Museums across the world have improved their digital and virtual assets. In the light of civil rights protests, some have closed down controversial exhibits, and the Baltimore Museum of Art has pledged to only accept works by female artists in the coming fiscal season.

"No museum has escaped uncertainty and questions of survival due to the pandemic’s closures and plunges in revenue. This spring, the International Council of Museums surveyed museums in 106 countries about the effects of the pandemic, finding that more than 80 percent of them expected to reduce programming and 10 percent might permanently close."

    So in cities like Pittsburgh, which has 50 different museums and cultural centers, the executives have worked together to establish safety measures to ensure safe reopenings. Other museums have seen cutoffs from international lenders and created exhibits from what they had. For example, the Saint Louis Art Museum displayed its famous collection of German art.

"'Museums are looking at their own collections and thinking: "How do we play this is a way that we hadn’t thought of before?'" Hathaway said."

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