LOS ANGELES – Fulton Leroy Washington (known as Mr. Wash), who started painting while serving time for a non-violent drug offense, was looking forward to being part of the Hammer Museum’s biennial – his first museum show – before the pandemic open the doors closed a few months before the exhibition opened. “I started to feel the enthusiasm,” said Washington. “Then the disappointment set in.”
The show, “Made in LA 2020”, was installed in June and is still in effect. But the public was not allowed to enter to see.
Los Angeles, where the coronavirus pandemic was particularly severe, is the largest city in the country whose museums have not yet reopened, even temporarily, since the pandemic last March. The prolonged closure is costing its museums millions of dollars a day in lost revenue and leaving the city back at a crucial time when an influx of artists and galleries and an expanding museum scene led some to declare Los Angeles the creative center of the contemporary art world.
“It is frustrating to see crowded malls and retail spaces and airports, but museums are completely closed and many have not been able to reopen in the past 10 months,” said Celeste DeWald, executive director of the California Museum Association. “There is a unique impact on museums.”
The city is an exception. In recent weeks, museums in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, all with less severe outbreaks, have been allowed to reopen with reduced capacity. And New York’s museums, which reopened in late August, remained open despite the rise in cases of viruses and deaths in autumn and winter.
Although the outlook for the virus in Los Angeles has improved dramatically since last month, when an outbreak hit hospitals and funeral homes, the county continues to record more new cases of the virus each day than any other in America.
Some museum executives in Los Angeles are irritated by state regulations, which they say forced them to remain closed, even though commercial entities could resume business (and with art galleries now open by appointment).
“When they opened art galleries and indoor malls, I thought, ‘This doesn’t look right,'” said Hammer director Ann Philbin. “Our museums function as real places of rest, healing and inspiration – they help people a lot.”
Some museums in other parts of the state have managed to reopen at least briefly, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which opened for two months from October, before having to close again.
But now all museums in the state must remain closed indoors (outdoor areas can be used), which costs $ 22 million a day, according to the museum association. The estimated total revenue loss for 2020 is more than $ 5 billion, the association said, including science centers, zoos and aquariums.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said in an email that “museums are essential to the structure of our society”, but warned that they remain “high-risk environments because they attract visitors from across the state and the country, increasing the risk of virus transmission. ”
“In addition, visitors often stay in museums for long periods of time,” continued Newsom, “again increasing the risk of transmission.”
In Los Angeles, the prolonged closure of museums affected not only admissions and members, but also event rentals, fundraising and other revenue-generating activities.
“It hurts,” said W. Richard West Jr., president and chief executive of the Autry Museum of the American West, adding that he hoped museums could reopen with limited capacity “so that the public knows we are not dead. “
The pandemic hit amid a flood of activities in Los Angeles museums: major renovation projects at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Hammer; Broad’s success; the establishment of the Frieze Los Angeles art fair; and a new leadership at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Klaus Biesenbach) and at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (Anne Ellegood).
Two new flags in the city had to postpone their opening dates – the Museum of the Cinema Academy, from spring to autumn 2021, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, from 2022 to 2023.
Smaller institutions were particularly affected. Revenue from the Museum of African American Art, which is on the third floor of a Macy’s store, fell 68%. “We are inside an open retail space,” said Keasha Dumas Heath, the museum’s executive director, in testimony on February 2 at a State Assembly arts committee hearing on how to safely reopen artistic activities. “People don’t understand why we are closed.”
Artists, in particular, are feeling the effects. One of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year, Hammer’s “Made in LA 2020” biennial has been postponed until the end of this year. The delay left the 30 artists at the show without a crucial opportunity to attract attention.
“This show can make or break careers,” said Philbin. “It is a very important exhibition for these artists – it can take them to galleries – and it is not happening for any of them now.”
Because of the prolonged closure and crowded exhibition calendars of museums, some shows may have to close without ever being seen by the public. The Getty Museum’s exhibition of Michelangelo’s drawings was open to the public for only six days; another, in Mesopotamia, was scheduled to open shortly after the museum closed on March 14.
Last April, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hoped to open what was announced as the first international retrospective by Japanese painter Yoshitomo Nara. The artist, known for his disturbing portraits, traveled from Tokyo to Los Angeles twice to oversee the installation of the exhibition, but it was never opened.
While trying to argue that they should be allowed to resume operations, several Los Angeles museum directors said most of their presence comes from city residents, not tourists. And some have suggested that museum visitors do not dwell on art for as long as some would expect.
In an appeal to reopen museums last fall, the state museum association cited a survey by the California Academy of Sciences that shows that visitors usually spend less than 20 minutes at exhibitions. (A group of researchers conducted a study at the Art Institute of Chicago and found that the time spent looking at a single piece of art averages about 29 seconds.)
Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said he was surprised at the inconsistency that the museum store remains open because it qualifies as a trade, as do art galleries, which are considerably smaller than museums . Museums, he argued, provide a public service.
“We can be part of the solution,” said Govan.
In the biggest museums in Los Angeles, officials say, it would be easy to impose distance measures. “We have 100,000 square feet of space and a limited number of people in the museum,” said Terry L. Karges, executive director of the Petersen Automotive Museum.
The budget recently proposed by Newsom included $ 25 million for small museums and theaters, along with $ 15 million for the California Arts Council for the California Creative Corps – to be funded through corresponding private donations – which would hire artists to produce public health messages.
“We know they are struggling,” said Newsom of state institutions. “We also know that people of all ages look to these organizations to find hope, healing, connection and joy.” But he added that museum guidance “is focused on keeping people safe to minimize case rates and make sure we don’t overburden our ICUs”
According to state guidelines, museums cannot open their doors if they are in counties with an average of more than seven new cases per day for every 100,000 people. Los Angeles County averages more than 40 new cases per day per 100,000 people, according to a New York Times database that tracks the two-week trend.
State Legislature Budget Committees asked the governor to increase his cultural aid funding to $ 50 million. “California is the last state to allow closed museums to reopen in any capacity across the state,” said committee chairmen in a February 4 letter, co-signed by 250 cultural institutions.
“While we understand the need for caution to prevent spread,” the letter continued, “we also know that no industry can survive the closure for more than a year.”
Not all Los Angeles museums are pressing to reopen. “We have to put the safety of our team and our audience first,” said Biesenbach, of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), where total revenues have decreased by 26%, the number of members by 32% and admissions by 50%.
“When the numbers are low and the vaccine is launched,” added Biesenbach, “then it would be appropriate to reopen.”
Others are eager to let people in again. “We didn’t give up,” said DeWald, of the museum association. “We continue to argue that museums can adopt protocols and use the state’s existing guidelines to make their spaces safe.”