ARTNET NEWS
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| Vienna's Belvedere Museum. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. |
Museums and other cultural venues in Austria will be allowed to reopen in mid-May, the country’s government announced today. And when they do, they’ll be among the first major institutions in Europe to reopen their doors after going into lockdown to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus last month. As of today, Austria counts more than 14,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 431 deaths. The number of new cases has declined significantly since late March, when the country was experiencing nearly 1,000 new diagnoses each day. Mid-sized stores and other businesses will follow on May 1, while “presentation venues in the artistic and cultural field” and “definitely museums” will be given the go-ahead in the middle of the month, said Austria’s Vice Chancellor, Werner Kogler, in a news conference. An exact date for the proposed reopenings has not yet been set. [
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- Museums in China are also planning their own returns to normalcy. The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing announced this week that it will again open its doors for the first time in four months, on May 21.
- To inaugurate the occasion, the museum will mount “Meditations in an Emergency,” an exhibition conceived in response to the global health crisis, featuring 20 artists from China.
- Other venues in the country such as the China Art Museum, the Power Station of Art, and the Shanghai Museum have been open since mid-March, when China first saw declining COVID numbers.
