As of March 30, over 19,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the UK, including 1,228 deaths. Prime minister Boris Johnson is among the infected. The country has gone into lockdown, galleries and museums have found themselves in crisis
Hans Ulrich Obrist. Source: Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph/Shutterstock/Artnews
Curator and Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist put forward an idea to help museums survive through the pandemic – a vast public arts project on the scale of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression, according to Artnews.
Orbist was inspired by the cornerstone of Roosevelt’s New Deal – the Public Works of Art Project and its successor, the Works Progress Administration. The project employed more than 8 million Americans and helped Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko start their careers.
As part of the programmes, artists created over 15,000 artworks in 1935-1943, including murals, motivational posters and sculptures for government buildings.
"With the WPA, they went out into the community: artists got salaries and were able to research and create work during the New Deal era. It gave many people their first real jobs and commissions", the Guardian quotes Hans Ulrich Obrist as saying.
“When the situation is under control, they need to go into communities with art which don’t usually have access to it. In this time of crisis, it’s important that museums think about how they can go beyond their walls and reach everyone,” he adds.
Last week, Arts Council England offered £160 million of emergency funding to support art institutions and artists, but experts fear it would not be enough.
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