Jeff Koons, Gagosian Gallery, and many other blue-chip art establishments have received millions of dollars in government incentive money

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Artists, museums, and galleries in the United States have taken advantage of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program – better known as PPP – which provides loans to small businesses individual artists, and nonprofits as an incentive to keep workers on staff during lockdown.

Any business with fewer than 500 employees can apply for the loans – most of which are government-provided – but not all of the program beneficiaries have been small businesses.

Jeff Koons, whose studio has employed more than 100 assistants received $ 1 to 2 million at the same time, according to the Ministry of Finance. Meow Wolf, the trippy experiential arts collective in New Mexico that laid off more than half of its employees in April, was offered between $ 5 million and $ 10 million in grants.

Artists Dan Colen, Daniel Arsham, Sterling Ruby, and Tom Sachs all received at least $ 150,000.

Meanwhile, Galleries like Pace, Gagosian (the leaves his part-time workers on leave in April) and David Zwirner (the almost 40 employees laid off this month) all made between $ 2 million and $ 5 million. At the bottom end, Blum and Poe, Hauser and Wirth, 303 Gallery, Gladstone Gallery, Jack Shainman Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Luhring Augustine, Marlborough Gallery, Matthew Marks and Kasmin received $ 350,000 to $ 1 million each.

The Whitney Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art each received between $ 5 million and $ 10 million in government aid. (The Whitney 76 employees laid off at the beginning of spring; SFMOMA Hundreds of employees on leave in March then 55 more cut in June.)

The exterior of Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe on its first anniversary. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

The Trump administration yesterday released the list of companies awarded more than $ 150,000 in PPP aid after numerous Democratic politicians called for greater transparency in the allocation of incentives. Exact loan numbers were not disclosed; Instead, the companies were divided into areas – 5 to 10 million US dollars in the upper price segment, up to $ 150,000 to $ 350,000.

The published information accounts for almost three quarters of the total aid money distributed.

Other notable institutions that have received PPP funds include the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Jewish Museum, which received $ 2 to 5 million each; Harlem’s New Museum, Rubin Museum, and Studio Museum each received grants of $ 1 million to $ 2 million.

On the auction side, Phillips and Bonhams were awarded between $ 2 million and $ 5 million. Artnet, meanwhile, received between $ 1 million and $ 2 million.

Check out the full list of $ 150,000 PPP Loans Here.

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