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  2020-03-26

  ‘This Is the Biggest Challenge We’ve Faced Since the War’: How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Exposing the Precarious Position of Museums Worldwide

  The article discusses the financial hit to museums caused by the pandemic and fear and anxiety over how long museums can sustain amid a global shutdown. Whereas federal aid has come to the rescue of some museums provided by select countries for example, Germany and Britain; however, the United States does not have the same relief plans in place for cultural institutions. The pandemic has revealed weaknesses in the current museum model in relation to funding and what the article describes as a “winners take all mentality”. These problems have been compounding for decades but is the pandemic the straw that breaks the camel’s back? What might a new museum model look like if the old one is no longer sustainable?
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  2020-12-31

  The Top Ten Online Exhibitions of 2020

  In an end of the year article, Smithsonian lists the top ten virtual museum exhibitions of 2020: 1. The Smithsonian’s National Picture Gallery, “Every Eye Is Upon Me: First Ladies of the United States”  2. Peabody Essex Museum, “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle” 3. The Whitney Museum, “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945” 4. The Museum of Modern Art, “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” 5. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” 6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Making the MET, 1870-2020” 7. The British Museum, “The Museum of the World” 8. The Rijksmuseum, “The Night Watch” 9. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, “Van Eyck an Optical Revolution” 10. Instituto Cervantes, “Wise and Valiant: Women and Writing in Gold Age of Spain”