News From Around the Art World: May 12, 2020
Chicago museums facing financial woes as major exhibits are sidelined by pandemic
American museums are losing at least $33 million a day because of continuing closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American Alliance of Museums, a national support and advocacy organization for the field.
Losses in Illinois were expected to top $7.3 million in revenues through April 30 based on responses from 56 museums and galleries in a statewide survey conducted by Arts Alliance Illinois.
By Kyle MacMillan, Chicago Sun-Times
Why the Art World Is Rediscovering Female Abstract Expressionist Michael West
The doorbell to Michael West’s New York City studio was broken, and she didn’t care to fix it. “I just want to paint in peace,” the Abstract Expressionist painter (born Corinne Michelle West) wrote in 1981, a decade before her death as a forgotten artist living alone, on welfare. Even a missed visit from her former teacher Hans Hofmann, a respected painter who had come to check out her latest work, hadn’t convinced her to repair her faulty buzzer.
By Karen Chernick, Artsy Editorial
‘In two and a half years, who knows where the world will be’—Lyon Biennale curators reveal why exhibition was pushed back from 2021 to 2022
Pressure on resources play a part as well as ethical issues in the wake of coronavirus
By Gareth Harris, The Art Newspaper
A Drive-By Art Show Turns Lawns and Garages Into Galleries
The outdoor exhibition on Long Island featured works installed at properties from Hampton Bays to Montauk, with social isolation as just one theme.
No one was supposed to get too close to each other over the weekend during a drive-by exhibition of works by 52 artists on the South Fork of Long Island — a dose of culture amid the sterile isolation imposed by the pandemic. But some people couldn’t help themselves.
By Stacey Stowe, The New York Times