Galleries, Auction Houses, and Museums Are Joining Growing Efforts to Donate Their Protective Medical Gear to Hospitals

When museums and art galleries install exhibitions, art handlers
often suit up for the task with gloves and sometimes
masks—sometimes even medical grade masks—to keep from breathing in
noxious paint fumes and construction dust. But amid the global
health crisis, many institutions have to come to realize that those
medical supplies are urgently needed by the health care workers
fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s why institutions as varied as the Brooklyn Museum,
Christie’s, the Frick Collection, and Pace gallery have raided
their storerooms to donate leftover N95 masks, nirile gloves, and
other medical supplies to hospitals and other medical professionals
in need.

“With so many of our city’s hospital workers facing massive
shortages of essential medical supplies, it’s urgent everyone does
their part—including our city’s great museums,” said Brooklyn
Museum director Anne Pasternak. “We just sent 2,800 gloves,
normally used for conservation, to the front lines.”

Collectively, the art organizations’ efforts have seen at least
23,360 gloves, 338 N95 masks, 510 masks, 300 protective booties,
and 75 Tyvek aprons delivered to the medical professionals who need
them most.

As the pandemic continues to spread, with hospital beds rapidly
filling up with critically ill Americans, many medical facilities
find themselves with a dire shortage of protective gear. On Friday,
the US Conference of Mayors
released the results of a survey of 41 cities across the country,
which found that 90 percent of cities did not have adequate mask
supplies for emergency workers.

At least one nurse in New York—which is the epicenter of the US
outbreak—Kious Kelly, has already died working at a hospital where
staff were reportedly using garbage bags in place of medical-grade
protective gear.

“There is a severe shortage of protective equipment for our
frontline workers in New York who are risking their own health to
protect our families and community,” said Marc Glimcher, Pace’s CEO
and president (who was recently diagnosed with coronavirus himself,
according to the Canvas). “Pace is responding to the shortage by
donating the supply of gloves and masks we have at our New York
locations to our city’s hospitals.”

Pace is also supporting the efforts of its employees Hansi Liao
and Echo He, who have helped found a new organization, N95 for NYC, to source personal protective
equipment from medical suppliers in China. An order of 10,000
Dasheng N95 masks, 20,000 Jinghong surgical masks, and 350 BIOSIS
HEALING Medical Protective Coveralls is on its way to New York, and
the group has already collected $57,000 in donations.

Some donations are small: Dealer Timothy Taylor donated 19 N95
masks and 260 nitrile gloves to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in
Brooklyn, while the Museum of Arts and Design sent nine N95 masks,
3,500 Nitrile gloves, and two Tyvek suits to Montefiore Medical
Center in the Bronx. But each and every mask or set of gloves means
one more doctor or nurse who is protected from COVID-19, and able
to treat the patients suffering from this deadly disease.

“Now is a time for all of us to come together to help our fellow
New Yorkers,” said Maria Bueno, a partner at Cheim and Read, which
supplied 1,200 nitrile gloves to NewYork Presbyterian/Weill
Cornell. “We are proud to make this small donation to get our
gloves into the right hands.”

Other artists and groups interested in making similar donations
can reach out to organizations such as PPE1 NYC, a coalition of New York City
medical students who are on the front lines identifying shortage
spots. Artists have also started a network for medical
supply donations, called the Mask Crusaders, which
connects artists or institutions with spare protective gear to
needy medical institutions.

“No number is too small,” arts publicist Molly Krause, who has
been encouraging institutions to connect with PPE1 NYC, told Artnet
News. She got involved after seeing an Instagram post from Gregory
Reynolds, a preparator at the Whitney Museum, which showed a box
containing the museum’s donation of
N95 masks and nitrile gloves—and learning that her own father,
a physician in Pennsylvania, had been treating potential COVID-19
patients without a protective mask.

“I want it to become a standard course of action,” she added.
“Everyone in the art industry with gloves just sitting around,
masks sitting around collecting dust—donate them.”

The following art groups have all donated—or pledged to
donate once they have access to their facilities—supplies of
personal protective equipment to medical professionals experiencing
supply shortages during the current global health
crisis: 

Cheim & Read
Christie’s
Phillips
The Frick Collection
Jack Shainman
SRI (art handling company)
Timothy Taylor
Museum of Arts and Design
The Brooklyn Museum
Pace
David Zwirner
The Morgan Library and Museum
Richard Prince Studio
Swoon Studio
Mana Contemporary
Masterpiece
Sean Kelly
Lehmann Maupin

The post Galleries, Auction Houses, and Museums Are Joining
Growing Efforts to Donate Their Protective Medical Gear to
Hospitals appeared first on artnet News.