When will the galleries reopen?
As the coronavirus death toll continues to rise, the question of whether you can pop into an art gallery may seem “trivial”, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. Yet museums could certainly be opened without exposing visitors to unnecessary risk. Over the past few weeks, museums across Europe have been cautiously reopening their doors. In Germany, extra safety precautions have been imposed – such as compulsory mask-wearing – in order to guarantee visitors’ safety. Even in Italy, galleries have opened their doors. We should be doing the same: the British public has proved itself adept at social distancing in other respects. “If this nation of queuers is willing to stand in line safely at the threshold of a supermarket, then why not outside the National Gallery?” Besides, we might even be able to get added enjoyment from our national collections. Thanks to current travel restrictions, “we wouldn’t have to fight off phalanxes of selfie-snapping tourists”.
The Government’s official roadmap out of lockdown has caused deep “confusion” in the art world, said Anna Brady and Anny Shaw in The Art Newspaper. It seems probable that “subject to infection rates falling”, private galleries and auction houses may be allowed to return to normal as early as 1 June, during phase two of the easing of the lockdown – in line with advice for “non-essential retail businesses”. For our museums, however, the future is less clear: according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, they will have to wait for phase three. Reopening is unlikely to happen before July. It won’t be a moment too soon, said Richard Morrison in The Times. Lack of foreign visitors has seen a “big chunk” of museums’ revenue disappear – indeed, it now seems likely that their funding model may be “bust, beyond repair”. If our cultural institutions are to survive this crisis, we must get them open without further delay.