Coronavirus: Reopened Art Gallery of NSW an art starter for culture buffs

In the years from 1919 to 2020, only two lethal pandemics — the Spanish flu and COVID-19 — have caused the Art Gallery of NSW to close.

Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand with new exhibition Some Mysterious Process on Wednesday … ‘It will be a bit strange coming back’. Picture: Nikki Short

In the years from 1919 to 2020, only two lethal pandemics — the Spanish flu and COVID-19 — have caused the Art Gallery of NSW to close its doors to the public.

“It’s a bit surreal to think that the last time we shut our doors for this long was in 1919,” said Michael Brand, the gallery’s director. “The similarities between now and 100 years ago are quite striking.”

Though the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic just over two months ago, art enthusiasts in NSW will be among the first in the world to return to what life was like before the crisis.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Wednesday that art galleries, libraries and ­museums would reopen from June 1 with strict social distancing, including a 24-hour quarantine system for library books.

Dr Brand, meanwhile, is no stranger to crises. He was director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in the US during 9/11 and was instrumental in steering the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles through the global financial crisis.

The arts administrator, who has served as a director in galleries and museums from Lahore to ­Toronto, told The Australian nothing could have prepared him for the unique challenges posed by a “once in a 100-year pandemic”.

“It will be a bit strange coming back, but I think the overwhelming sense of people returning to a favourite place will far outweigh the differences in experience,” he said. “We won’t be having a major exhibition for at least a few months, which is frustrating and sad because we exist to share our collections with the public.”

Capacity will be limited to allow for the 4sq m-per-person rule and seating spread out to ensure it meets the 1.5m social distancing rules. As well, books will be quarantined for 24 hours before returning to the library shelves.

The plan to reopen the state’s much-loved cultural institutions has been welcomed by the embattled arts sector, a group hit particularly hard by the coronavirus crisis.

“It’s fantastic,” said Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. “Galleries are places where you can imagine a different future. It’s unquantifiable the impact art, in general, can have in these difficult times.”

The announcement of the reopening of cultural institutions comes after Ms Berejiklian said NSW would also be opening up to residents and interstate visitors for regional travel from June 1.

“We attract about one million visitors every year,” Ms Macgreg­or said. “The arts will play a huge role in the city’s and the state’s economic recovery.”

There will be special opening times for high-risk groups, including people aged over 70, and patrons will be required to leave a record of their visit so authorities can follow up if there is an infection linked to the facility. Distance markers, similar to those being rolled out on buses and trains and ferries, will also be used to manage queues and stop people from crowding around displays. Museums and galleries will need to use online ticketing systems and groups or tours will not be allowed.