On Wednesday the board of trustees of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) agreed not to censure or penalise museums that use restricted funds, trusts or donations for operating expenses, for a period until April 2022. It also agreed on a policy that allows members to deaccession works from their collections only for the purpose of looking after the rest of the collection. ‘This is a crisis without precedent in our lifetime, with global implications and with a timeline that unfolds as we live it,’ said the organisation’s president Brent Benjamin, who is the director of the St Louis Art Museum.
For forty years, Sfeir-Semler Gallery has served as a gateway between the Middle East and the global art world, shaping contemporary Arab discourse while amplifying voices that might otherwise be lost.