Milan’s Miart Art Fair Has Been Postponed Until the Fall as the Coronavirus Crisis Deepens in Italy

As flights to Milan are cancelled or half empty, the organizers
of the 25th edition of miart, the Italian city’s international art
fair, have decided to postpone the event until the fall. Milan Art
Week, which sees a host of exhibitions and special projects opening
in the city’s art foundations and museums, is also being pushed
back from April to September.

“The decision to postpone both events has been made in the
interest of the health of visitors and exhibitors, in light of the
spread of Covid-19,” the fair announced today, March 6. The fair is
now due to open to invited visitors on September 10 and run
through September 13. Milan Art Week is due to launch on September
7. The fair says that it has been working with stakeholders to
reschedule all related events, which include an Olafur Eliasson
project at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi.

The announcement ends more than a week of speculation about the
fair. As Northern Italy saw a spike in infections, the world’s
largest design fair, the Salone di Mobile, announced that it would
not be taking place in Milan in April just after miart, postponing
until mid-June. Other European fairs are also moving their dates.
Art Paris, artmonte-carlo, and PAD Paris have also just announced
new schedules. Art Paris has moved from its planned dates at the
beginning of April to May 28 through 31.

Meanwhile the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus has risen
in Italy to 3,800, and the number of deaths stands at 148. France
reports nearly 500 cases, and seven fatalities. Today a woman
became the first person to die from the infection in the UK.

There are 183 galleries from 20 countries due to take part in
miart, including mega-gallery Gagosian.

“We do see this decision as a relief and are supporting the new
dates in September. Hopefully it will allow to reorganize and to
bring the people involved in the different levels of this edition,”
Florian Lüdde from Berlin gallery ChertLüdde tells Artnet
News.

Now that art berlin is no longer taking place in September,
after its parent company
pulled the plug earlier this year, the September slot is, in
fact, quite attractive. The new date could give the Milan fair a
boost, as it will take place at the very beginning of the fall
season of fairs, ahead of Vienna Contemporary, Frieze London, FIAC
in Paris, and Artissima in Turin. “Lets take it as a fresh
start,” Lüdde says.

Two other prominent April fairs in Europe, Art Brussels and Art
Cologne, have both announced that they are planning to go ahead as
usual though each has stated the fairs are monitoring the situation
closely.

Milan’s museums and private foundations reopened earlier this
week after authorities closed many public venues to contain the
sudden and rapid outbreak of the coronavirus in the city and across
the Lombardy and Veneto regions.

Museums in Milan, like those in Turin and Venice, are advising
visitors to stay three feet apart. But visitors are few in number
anyway. According to the New York Times, at
the Palazzo Reale in Milan, there were 160 visitors admitted
by midday Wednesday; its daily average is 1,000.

The decline in visitors is due to health concerns, but tourism
to Italy is in sharp decline due to the outbreak. A few airlines
have been suspending their flights to Italy. According to the
Straits Times,
Singapore International Airlines just announced that it was
cancelling all flights to Milan until May.

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