COVID19

Smithsonian, National Gallery to close as covid-19 cases spike

By Jaime E. Love 4 days ago

Similar shutdowns were announced earlier this week in Philadelphia and Chicago, representing the start of a second wave of shutdowns eight months after covid-19 first prompted widespread closures.

National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman and Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III decided to take action after monitoring the recent rise in coronavirus cases being reported.

“We both expressed growing concern about the increased number of cases in the region and across the country and came to the conclusion that caution needed to prevail to protect our visitors and staff,” Feldman said.

“It can’t help but feel like a step backward,” Feldman said about the decision. “But what’s different this time is we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The prospect of a vaccine lifts our spirits. We have big plans for next year and lots to look forward to. We need to keep people

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COVID-19 is taking a ‘frightening’ toll on Miami-Dade’s arts and culture groups

By Jaime E. Love 2 months ago

For the Frost Museum of Science, the first of Miami-Dade’s major cultural institutions to reopen in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, a salvaged summer season was supposed to be something of a grace note in a lost year. It didn’t quite work out that way.

When the museum opened in June, administrators were hoping to recapture enough summer traffic, usually the highest of the year, to steady its capsizing finances. But a resurgence of infections in July and August, strict capacity limits and many families’ continued reluctance to risk exposure — even with well-publicized safety protocols — kept ticket sales at just a quarter of the level of the summer before, CEO Frank Steslow said.

Now, if Congress fails to approve a second hefty federal bailout along the lines of the multi-billion aid program that helped the Frost ride out three months of total closure, Steslow said, the

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Though COVID-19 tests our resilience, art and culture will keep us strong

By Jaime E. Love 5 months ago

The arts are taking it on the chin right now. As a recent headline in Andres Viglucci’s recent story “Miami’s arts and culture were flourishing. Now, of course, they’re being battered by the coronavirus” declared. Dennis Scholl, head of Oolite Arts, eloquently followed up in an April 12 oped, “Art will get us through this pandemic. Support the Miami artists who create it” with a call to come to the aid of local artists.

In that spirit, I write to say, Miami’s arts and culture will be resilient. Through this challenging moment, art is the one thing that we all will need to make sense of our time sheltering-in-place, “togetheralone” and working from home.

Books, films, music, videos of dancers, actors and performers, and live DJ sets on a variety of social media all are acts of creativity that bind us together and will get us through these traumatic

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