UN AGENCY WARNS PANDEMIC COULD KILL 1 IN 8 MUSEUMS WORLDWIDE

Museums are starting to reopen in some countries as governments ease coronavirus restrictions, but experts warn one in eight worldwide could face permanent closure due to the pandemic.

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Studies by UNESCO and the International Council of Museums show 90% of the planet’s museums, some 85,000 institutions, have had to shut at least temporarily.

“It is alarming data that we are giving,” Ernesto Ottone, Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO said in an interview with the press this week.

He said the problem cuts across the board, affecting museums big and small, new and established, featuring art or science.

Museums that indicated they might well not reopen, he said, “have been closed for months and they have no revenues. And they don’t know how they’re going to get their revenues.”

And once they do reopen, Ottone said, “they (won’t) have the capacity to update their infrastructure” to conform with social distancing and other pandemic precautions.

Some costly blockbuster shows have suffered heavy damage this spring. A once-in-a-lifetime exhibit bringing together fragile paintings by Flemish master Jan van Eyck had barely opened in Ghent, Belgium, when it was abruptly canceled. It won’t be resumed, as many of the works were on loan and had to be returned.