For New York art lovers, the quarantine is over: after six months of closure, you can once again see masterpieces by Monet or Picasso, admire statues by Giacommetti. This week, the famed Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan (MoMA) reopened its doors, though the halls are not yet as crowded as before.
“I love the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Georges Seurat, they are two of my favorite artists,” confesses young Eliana. And her mother adds:
“As soon as I found out that the museum was opening again, I immediately bought tickets because I said to myself, ‘We have to go there.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has also reopened its treasures to the public, but so far only to a limited audience. The Big Apple museums have strict rules: masks must be worn, temperatures are taken at the entrance, and time slots must be reserved in advance. And the maximum occupancy should not exceed 25% of the capacity. So on the first day of the opening, the Met visited less than 10,000 people instead of the 30,000 to 40,000 who usually come on Saturdays.
The pandemic has hit the budgets of New York museums, which are much more dependent on ticket sales than European museums. So the Met lost during the closure of 150 million dollars and has already cut 400 employees.