Those wanting to catch a glimpse of rare pieces from artists Lawren Harris, Maud Lewis and Shushan Egoyan will have the opportunity next week when the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria reopens following a two-month closure.
The art gallery — which shut its doors on March 17 amid coronavirus fears — will become the city’s first high-profile cultural organization to reopen when it begins allowing visitors again on Tuesday. The province’s plan to reopen the B.C. economy allows some businesses to resume operating in a restricted capacity this month.
“We went over what they are expecting from museums and art galleries and institutions like us, and made sure we were doing everything they asked, and exceeded that to the extent that we can,” said art gallery director Jon Tupper.
The gallery on Moss Street will be open Tuesday through Sunday each week, and will offer free admission to all visitors until July 5.
“People want to get out, they want to do something,” Tupper said. “We want to make it easy for everybody. A lot of people are hurting right now and this gives them an opportunity to take their family to the gallery and not have to reach into their pockets if they don’t want to.”
Gallery ambassadors will go through the Health Ministry’s self-assessment tool with visitors before they enter the premises. Once inside, staff will ensure visitors in each gallery room remain two metres apart and that social-distancing procedures are being followed.
The art gallery will be cleaned several times a day.
New protocols include steps galleries and museums around the world have adopted. When the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria closed two months ago, Tupper said, museums in China were starting to reopen, so he looked at what they were doing. Some of those measures will be implemented locally, he said.
Plexiglas shields will be installed at the front desk, and gallery staff will constantly assess what can be done to ensure the gift shop remains open. With protocols that allow one visitor for every square metre of space, the total capacity is set at 20 people.
“We will have a person counting to make sure there is limited amount of people in the gallery, and they will ask people to wait like they do at a grocery store,” Tupper said.
“It’s a similar type of situation. We’ll have to tweak it to make sure it works perfectly, but nobody has done this before so we’re learning as we go along.”
The gallery will continue to offer virtual programming through its website for those who prefer to stay at home.
The two largest galleries in the building will showcase rare pieces pulled from the gallery’s collection of almost 20,000 works.
What the gallery has put on display is not as important as what the reopening says about the effort organizations are making to combat the coronavirus, Tupper said.
“Every cultural organization is hurting right now,” he said. “But we have a role to play in restarting B.C.’s economy.
“The gallery is an economic driver in the community, too, so we have a role to play in tourism and other economic sectors. It’s important for those things to start opening up so we can get to the other side of this a little bit faster and easier.”
