Dallas Contemporary, raised a white flag on Monday, announcing that, because of COVID-19, it will remain shuttered for the rest of the very strange year that is 2020.
The Glass Street venue will not reopen until late January at the earliest, said executive director Peter Doroshenko, who noted that, despite being dark for so long, Dallas Contemporary will not be forced to lay off or furlough any of its eight full-time or four part-time employees.
“The decision was made a little more than a month ago,” Doroshenko said. “Basically because Dallas and Texas are a COVID-19 epicenter. No group, no parents, no grandparents, want to be in a confined building. That’s the reality we are in. Nobody wanted this to happen, but it’s happening.”
In the Dallas Arts District, all museums remain closed as well, with no indication of when they’ll reopen.
Doroshenko hopes that when Dallas Contemporary reopens in January, “It will be a much better and more positive situation.” In the meantime, it will continue to do what it can online, at dallascontemporary.org, which remains an avenue of opportunity for museums all over the world.
When it comes to the financial impact of navigating the coronavirus, Doroshenko said, “Obviously, there are always impacts. We always had a reserve. We have amazing stakeholders, board members and members that have turned up in force during this current unsettling time.”
As a result, he said, Dallas Contemporary “is maintaining the ship quite well. That doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone, so we’re quite fortunate that way.”
Dallas Contemporary was last open in March, when it was preparing to open exhibitions by Yoshitomo Nara and Liu Xiaodong. So, now, the museum plans to stage those shows in January, along with two new ones.
“We definitely have a road map and a strategy,” Doroshenko said.
Dallas Contemporary has an annual budget of slightly less than $2 million. Doroshenko said, yes, that “will morph into a lower number, but I see next year as being similar to where we were in 2019.”
Or at least he hopes 2021 will be that way.
Dallas Contemporary did not appear on the list of 51 Dallas arts and cultural organizations that recently adopted uniform “COVID-19 safety standards” to determine how and when they can reopen.
Doroshenko said Monday that his organization‘s absence was merely a byproduct of logistics.
“We agree with everything there,” he said. “It’s just that I was traveling to New York City.”
He said he missed the deadline to sign on, though he would have been happy to.
“Obviously, we support them and agree with everything they put out,” he said.
