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A Hudson Valley oasis of Italian art debuts eight up-and-coming artists — and new wearable safety tech — upon its reopening.
By Ted Loos
COLD SPRING, N.Y. — I’ve been cheating, and it’s likely you have been too: Six feet apart is a lot farther away than most people seem to hope it is.
I know this because at the recent reopening of Magazzino Italian Art, the museum of postwar and contemporary work here in the Hudson Valley, I wore a piece of social-distancing hardware called an EGOpro Active Tag. It was attached to a lanyard around my neck.
The tag is required for all visitors, and it’s programmed to vibrate for a few seconds every time the wearer is closer than six feet to a tag worn by another person.
Mine buzzed a lot.
I misjudged my spacing quite a few times, and the incessant buzzing was annoying. But that’s the point, of course. It made me retreat, and quickly.
“The technology makes a lot of sense to me,” said Harry Wilks of Plattekill, N.Y., one of the visitors I encountered. “It would make even more sense on the weekend, when it’s more crowded.”
My interviews weren’t exactly helping the situation. Mr. Wilks added, “Mine didn’t go off until you came up to me to talk.”
Magazzino, founded in 2017 by the collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, is the first museum in the United States to use the technology.
That Magazzino takes pandemic safety seriously is clear from the beginning of a visit there. Temperature checks are now required for all visitors, administered in a little tent outside the entrance. “Nobody’s fussing about it so far,” said Jay Nicholas, a visitor services assistant, who took mine. Masks are required, too.
The museum, which was closed for four months, is admitting 10 people per half-hour via advance reservation, and it assumes a 90-minute visit. It could have more visitors, according to state and county guidelines, but they decided to start cautiously.
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