The UK government has agreed to classify galleries and auction houses as ‘non-essential retail businesses’, thus allowing them to reopen in the second phase of the lifting of lockdown restrictions, currently planned after 1 June. The Art Newspaper reports that art trade associations including LAPADA and the British Art Market Federation (BAMF) have been lobbying the government for guidelines regarding a safe return to work.
For decades, the story of the Arab world has often been told through the eyes of outsiders. At the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation on Saadiyat Island, a new exhibition is shifting that perspective entirely.