Japan Joins a Wave of Countries Shutting Down Museums in an Effort to Limit the Spread of the Coronavirus

As the deadly strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, continues to
spread across the world, Japan is taking emergency measures by
closing its museums for at least two weeks at the instruction of
the minister of education, culture, sports, science, and
technology.

Affected institutions include the Tokyo National Museum, the
Kyoto National Museum, and the Mori Art
Museum and Ōta Memorial Museum of
Art, both in Tokyo. TeamLab’s popular Tokyo
museums, teamLab Borderless and teamLab Planets, are also
closed, and will be refunding ticket purchasers. The Ghibli
Museum dedicated to the films of Hayao Miyazaki, also in
Tokyo, is offering refunds to guests with reservations for
February and March.

Japan is following the example of South Korea and Italy, which
both decided to shut down
museums earlier this week. The National Museum of Korea,
the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary
Art, and the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, all in
Seoul, are currently closed until further notice. Venice’s Peggy Guggenheim Collection is
set to reopen Monday, while Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera is closed until
Tuesday.

Prior to Japan’s government-instituted shutdown, some museums
were already taking precautions of their own. The Hakone Open-Air Museum’s website instructed
guests to use hand sanitizer provided at the entrance, to don masks
if they were coughing or sneezing, and to “refrain from entering
the facilities if you do not feel well or know that you have
fever.”

The decision to shutter Japanese museums means that Tokyo’s
National Museum of Western Art will delay the planned March 3
opening of “Masterpieces from the National Gallery,” reports the
Art Newspaper.
The exhibition, which is set to travel to Osaka’s National Museum
of Art in July, comprises 60 works on loan from London’s National
Gallery, including Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

The London museum hopes that the show will open on March 17,
but “everything is dependent on government advice in this
rapidly changing situation,” noted a press release, which
added that gallery was “very disappointed about this delay, but we
understand and fully agree with the reasons for it.”

As the number of COVID-19 cases in Japan spiked, organizers also
announced the cancellation of the 34th annual Nakameguro Cherry Blossom Festival in
Tokyo.

It appears increasingly likely that the disease will become a
global pandemic, with the latest figures climbing over 83,000 cases
in 53 countries, according to the New York
Times. The spread of the disease has slowed in China, the
original site of the outbreak, but cases are multiplying quickly in
South Korea, Italy, Iran, and now Japan.

The US currently has 60 coronavirus cases, including a
California woman whose illness cannot be traced to overseas travel
and appears to be the country’s first “community spread”
contraction of the virus, according to CBS.

Fear of the disease has spread even to countries where there
have been no documented coronavirus cases, such as Poland. Earlier
this week, the Auschwitz Memorial
Museum posted a notice asking visitors
from infected places to stay home, noting that it had “recommended
travel agencies and organizers of trips to the memorial to desist
from the arrival of people from places found to be infected.”

Chinese institutions and cultural sites, including the Great Wall of
China, also had to shut as the illness swept the country in
January, with the government suggesting
museums host online exhibitions instead. Museums in Hong
Kong followed suit. Two new institutions, the He Art
Museum in Foshan and the X Museum in Beijing, pushed back planned
openings. The National Palace Museum in
Taipei reopened on February 14, but remains closed on Mondays and
will not be hosting guided tours through the end of March.

The virus has also seen the
cancellation of March’s planned Art Basel Hong Kong and the postponement
of CAFA Art Museum’s inaugural CAFAM Techne Triennial in Beijing, which was to
have opened February 20. Beijing’s Jingart art fair has been
cancelled as well, even though it was not set to open until May
24.

In New York, Christie’s and Sotheby’s have postponed Asia Week auctions from March to June.
Sotheby’s has also moved its March Hong Kong
auctions to New York in April.

The post Japan Joins a Wave of Countries Shutting Down
Museums in an Effort to Limit the Spread of the Coronavirus
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