Global
• Christie's auction house has shut all locations across the US and Europe (including London's King Street from Friday) until further notice and is postponing all sales in March and April, with the exception of two London auctions this week. On 19 March, Christie's major May 20th century week sales in New York were postponed to the end of June, absorbing the London sales. UPDATE 6 APRIL: Christie’s has postponed its Hong Kong Spring auctions week from the end of May to 5 to 13 July.
• Phillips auction house has shut its locations across the US and Europe and suspended all auctions until mid-May. Phillips has followed Christie's in postponing its mid-May Modern and contemporary art sales in New York to the end of June.
• Sotheby's announced on 17 March that it will "make final decisions about each event [auction] approximately 30 days prior to the existing sale date and will alert all relevant parties at that time." All online sales until 31 March will continue as planned. The London salesroom remains open to public for now with March auctions going ahead with one exception. The Hong Kong Spring auctions have been moved from the week of 5 April to the week beginning 5 July. All Paris and Milan auctions have been postponed indefinitely, but the Design sale in New York on 31 March will go ahead. Aside from London, all of Sotheby's locations worldwide are closed until further notice (Hong Kong by appointment only). UPDATE 25 MARCH: Sotheby’s relocates its Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary Art sales (which had been moved to 16 April in New York) back to Hong Kong in July. The three auctions—Modern Art Evening Sale and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales—will be moved to the week of 5 July along with the rest of the Hong Kong spring auction series.
• Bonhams announced on 18 March that from Friday 20 March all its offices will be closed (with the exception of Bonhams Hong Kong) and its salerooms in the UK, New York, and Los Angeles will be open by appointment. Some sales this month will go ahead behind closed doors (bids can be placed remotely) while all the London New Bond Street auctions will be postponed. UPDATE 27 APRIL: Bonhams moves all sales worldwide either online or behind closed doors until the end of June.
Europe
• As France went into lockdown on 16 March, all of Paris's auction houses (including Piasa, Artcurial and Drouot) and galleries have been shut until further notice. UPDATE: Paris auction houses started reopening in mid-May.
• UPDATE, 26 March: The biggest and most important fair of the Modern and contemporary art calendar, Art Basel in Basel (scheduled for 18-21 June) has been postponed until 17 to 20 September. Art Basel's parent company MCH Group has already cancelled its key event, the watch fair Baselworld, following the Swiss government's ban on large-scale events.
• Art Brussels (scheduled for 23-26 April) announced it would postpone until 25 to 28 June, a decision "aligned with the recent Belgian government recommendations aimed at containing the spread of the virus."
• Germany's Art Cologne, due to run over the same dates as Art Brussels, has postponed to 19-22 November (just after Art Dusseldorf from 13-15 November) in line with a ban on large-scale events in North Rhine-Westphalia. Berlin Gallery Weekend (1-3 May) has downsized with a second, larger edition announced for 1-3 September.
• In France, the art and design fair PAD Paris has been delayed to 12-17 May and Art Paris from early April to 28-31 May. The city's Drawing Now Art fair (salon du dessin contemporain), due to take place from 26 to 29 March at Le Carreau du Temple, will now take place from 29 May-1 June. The organisers of the Salon du Dessin fair, due to take place at Paris’s Palais Brongniart from 25-30 March, has been cancelled.
• In Italy, the worst affected country in Europe, Milan's April art week has been scrapped with the Miart fair postponed to 10-13 September and the city's huge design fair, the Salone del Mobile, moved from April to 16-21 June—clashing with Art Basel, should that go ahead as currently planned.
• Artmonte-carlo has also cancelled its event next month, to return in 2021.
• Tbilisi Art Fair in Georgia, due to run from 14 to 17 May, has been postponed—new dates yet to be announced.
• La Biennale Paris, due to run from 18 to 22 September, has been cancelled.
UK
- • On 26 March, Masterpiece London (scheduled for 24 June to 1 July) was
- • On 28 May, Lapada, the Association of Art and Antiques Dealers, cancelled its fair due to be held in Mayfair from 18 to 23 September.
• UPDATE: the Open Art Fair closed early on 19 March. Bucking the trend, the organisers of the first Open Art Fair in London's Duke of York Square (formerly the Bada fair) insist it will go ahead as planned next week. "Following the Prime Minister's announcement that large events can go ahead I can confirm that the fair will proceed as planned," said the director last night after the UK government's emergency Cobra meeting. "Exhibitors who have health issues or relatives with health problems may not attend but over 90% have said they will be putting their best feet forward. We feel this fair is important as a statement to the art world that we can and must continue to trade. Wisely, judiciously but above all we must continue."
• The inaugural Eye of the Collector fair in London's Two Temple Place, scheduled for mid-May, will be postponed until 8-11 September, alongside the London Design Biennale in nearby Somerset House.
• Photo London, scheduled for 14-17 May at Somerset House, has now been postponed to the autumn, although the exact dates are to be confirmed. In a statement released on 17 March, the organisers said: "No one quite knows when the virus will have run its course, and having weighed the opinions of various experts, we have decided to move the fair to a date in the early autumn. To that end, we are in discussions with the team at Somerset House and we hope to make a more detailed announcement in the coming days about our plans for this sixth edition of the fair". UPDATE: In May, Photo London announced it will run from 7 to 11 October.
• The London Original Print Fair, due to happen at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1 to 2 May, has been cancelled.
- • Mayfair Art Weekend, originally due to take place from 26 to 28 June, has been postponed until 25 to 27 September.
North America
• Expo Chicago has been postponed from September to 8 to 11 April 2021.
• New York's early May fairs season is looming but for now, in the wake of US President Donald Trump's European travel ban, many organisers are still deciding what to do.
• Frieze New York announced on 18 March that it will cancel its 2020 edition in May.
• 1-54 New York, which normally coincides with Frieze New York in May, has been cancelled and will return in May 2021.
• Following the early closure of Tefaf Maastricht after an exhibitor tested positive for Covid-19, a spokeswoman of Tefaf New York Spring (8-11 May) says: "We are looking at all options at this point in relation to the New York fair and will evaluate what is the best next step." UPDATE: on 20 March, Tefaf New York Spring was postponed until the autumn. It will now run from 31 October to 4 November, the dates normally occupied by its sister fair Tefaf New York Fall which will be cancelled as a result.
• Meanwhile, the organisers of the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair New York, due to be held at The Caldwell Factory from 8-10 May, are "very closely monitoring the situation and actively following both international guidelines and US specific-regulations on [Covid-19]". The fair is "working in close collaboration with our galleries, and other fairs and events with a similar international scope happening concurrently to ensure we are aligned on related contingency planning and decision making with regards to the upcoming New York fair."
• Object & Thing in New York will postpone its second edition from May 7 to 10 until 13 to 15 November 2020 "in response to the CDC’s recommendation to cancel or postpone large in-person events throughout the US over the next eight weeks as a means of slowing the spread of COVID-19". Additionally NYC x Design announced that its May festival is being suspended and will instead present programming in October.
• The inaugural Paris Photo New York, scheduled for April, has been postponed but is yet to announce its new dates.
• In the wake of the City of New York shuttering restaurants, bars and gyms, Asia Week New York has announced that 32 galleries have changed their schedules. Most will be open by-appointment only, while others from outside of the New York metropolitan region have or are in the process of closing; there were a few gallery closures before Asia Week opened on 12 March though the major auction houses had already postponed their related sales. "Our main priority is to ensure the public's health and safety during this challenging time, says Katherine Martin, the chairman of Asia Week New York.
• Several large New York galleries, including Pace, David Zwirner, Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth will close until further notice. Pace, Gagosian and Acquavella will postpone until further notice the Marron Collection exhibition, which was scheduled to open at Pace and Gagosian in New York. "Given the current climate of uncertainty, it seems that it will no longer be possible to secure the loans from international private lenders and institutions that would be required to present the true scope and influence of Don Marron’s collection," a spokeswoman says.
• In Texas, the Art Dallas Contemporary Art Fair, scheduled for April 16–19, has been cancelled while the Dallas Art Fair has been rescheduled for October.
• The LA Art Book Fair, which was to take place from 3 to 5 April at the Geffen Contemporary branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, has been cancelled.
South America
• SP-Arte in São Paulo, scheduled for 1-5 April, has been "suspended" indefinitely due to "the worsening of the situation involving Covid-19 in Brazil". The organisers say: "Given the international scale of the fair, we still have no way to calculate the logistical and operational impacts, which are increasing every day with mobility restrictions and border closings. We continue to evaluate alternatives to make the 16th edition of SP-Arte feasible at a more opportune time."
• ArteBA in Buenos Aires has also been postponed from 16–19 April —new dates yet to be announced.
Middle East
• Art Dubai cancelled its 14th edition (scheduled 25-28 March) and it will return next year from 17 to 20 March 2021. The fair is instead holding a smaller programme of exhibitions, events and talks tailored to Dubai-based galleries, museums and artists.
Asia
• Art Basel in Hong Kong and Art Central, some of the first event casualties of coronavirus, have cancelled their fairs which were due to run next week (19 to 21 March).
• Beijing's Jingart (scheduled 21-24 May) has also been cancelled while Gallery Weekend Beijing, originally planned for 13-20 March, now expects to announce its new dates on Sunday.