We need to safely reopen our cultural institutions and provide access to art for the people of Los Angeles. While other sectors reopen and allow for shopping and dining, our museums remain shuttered to the public. 

“Celeste DeWald, the executive director of the California Association of Museums, estimates that institutions in the state are cumulatively losing $22m each day they are closed.” 
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/california-dreaming-of-museums-reopening

“When they opened up art galleries and indoor malls, I was like, ‘This does not feel right,’” said the Hammer’s director, Ann Philbin. “Our museums function as real places of respite and healing and inspiration — they help people a lot.” 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/arts/design/los-angeles-museums-empty.amp.html

“This conundrum comes courtesy of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the great state of California, which has declared that indoor retail and personal care locations (such as nail salons) can reopen at 25% capacity now that coronavirus infection rates have begun to decline, but museums must remain shut.

This means a museum’s retail store can open to the public but the museum itself cannot. So LACMA can open its Resnick Pavilion gift shop but not the galleries within the same Resnick Pavilion — even though the two share a front door and a ventilation system. The same goes at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, where you may visit the gardens with an advance reservation, then mill around the indoor gift shop at your leisure.” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-02-12/covid-19-regulations-museums-closed-while-nail-salons-malls-open

“The researchers found that if kept at 30% capacity with everyone wearing a mask and following proper precautions, museums, theaters, and operas are safer than any other activity studied... Shopping at a supermarket with a mask is twice as risky as visiting a museum, according to the study, with an R-value at 1.1. Risk of infection is more than doubled when dining indoors in a restaurant at 25% capacity (1.1), or exercising in a gym at 30% capacity (1.4).” -https://hyperallergic.com/623971/museums-are-safer-than-any-other-indoor-activity-covid-19-study-says/ 

“Among the 607 organizations surveyed, 72 percent reported dismissing paid staff members and half said they dismissed contractors. Among nearly 1,000 workers surveyed, 88 percent reported losing income or other arts-related revenue. Some were considering giving up arts work or leaving the state.
Arts workers are suffering from “fragile economic foundations” and “devastating and immediate loss of income,” said Julie Baker, the executive director of Californians for the Arts. “We are facing a California creativity crisis and what we are calling a cultural depression.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/arts/california-arts-funding.html