Because of the COVID-19 crisis, the art and culture industry from many countries have been ceased for months. Losing the main financial cash flow, some institutions started to cut back on staff costs to reduce financial pressure. At the same time, governments created emergency grants for those who are in deep water.
The famous Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York announced furloughs 92 employees, which is nearly one-third of the whole museum. The director said this act will making over $80,000 USD in response to the pandemic. The oldest museum on the west coast, Portland Art Museum is placing nearly 75% of its staff members on unpaid leave.
The Whitney Museum of American Art and New Museum in New York laid off 76 and 41 employees respectively. The Comité Professionnel des Galeries d'Art inferences one-third French galleries could shut before end of 2020 due to coronavirus impact after conducting a survey, with estimated a total loss of €184m for this quarter.
While the industry is facing a huge catastrophe, governments have allocated budgets and funds to support arts and culture. Berlin launched a Grant Program to distribute €500 Million to Artists and Freelancers. On the first day, the online application system was so overloaded that it temporarily crashed. The culture minister Klaus Lederer tried to quell that worry, said that there would be enough for everyone.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK announced a rise of governmental funding for culture in terms of £1.6bn to help world-class national museums, galleries, and cultural activities that hope to maintain the operation of the art industry.
French’s culture ministry and southwest region provide grants for artists who creates project reflect on the COVID-19 crisis. Also, collector Antoine de Galbert donate funds to artists who don't have galleries and few collectors. Exhibitors of the La Biennale Paris would not have to pay the usual advance deposit and allowed to spread out payment over four months.
David Ryu, Councilman of Los Angeles’s fourth district plans create $1.2m emergency grants. The aim of this program is ‘Artists need support and people need art’. On the other hand, J. Paul Getty Trust set up a fund of $1m to Los Angeles small and medium-sized arts organizations.
However not every country responds keenly. In Italy, leaders of the art industry including Rome's MaXXI Museum, Venice’s civic museums, and artist Paola Pivi signed for calling the government creates a “national fund for culture” after what we learn from the coronavirus crisis for the long-term sustainably of high-profile cultural figures.
Predictably, this crisis is still ongoing and bring us a long-standing, dynamic, and comprehensive effect. Both the industry itself or the public cultural policy planning, the operation must be more autonomously and independently.
Figure 1: photo by Enid Alvarez ©Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Figure 2 top left:Monika Grütters, German culture minister © Arolsen Archives
Figure 2 left bottom: Katharina Grosse, Rockaway, 2016, MoMA PS1’s Rockaway! series, New York, USA, Acryl auf Wand © Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019 / Courtesy MoMA PS1 / Foto: Pablo Enriquez ©Hamburger Bahnhof
Figure 2 right: Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Mutualities (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 17–May 17, 2020). From left to right: Pilgrim, 2017; Halimufack (chasing after Zora), 2019. Photograph by Ron Amstutz © Whitney Museum
