Visitor Figures 2016 Exhibition & Museum Attendance Survey
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2 THE ART NEWSPAPER REVIEW Number 289, April 2017 SPECIAL REPORT VISITOR FIGURES 2016 EXHIBITION & MUSEUM ATTENDANCE SURVEY Christo helps 1.2 million people to walk on water While the Whitney breaks the hold of New York’s big two hristo’s triumph in Italy, a space in New York to five artists, including Steve Children admiring Louise Bourgeois at Tate Modern: ravenous appetite for French art McQueen, Lucy Dodd and Michael Heizer, for the institution has hung on to its spot as the world’s abroad and a shake-up in New several weeks at a time. On average, more than most popular Modern and contemporary art museum York are the big stories of The 4,000 visitors saw each of the five presentations, Art Newspaper’s 2016 attend- roughly equivalent to the number that visited the FEMALE ARTISTS DRAW BIG CROWDS ance survey. museum’s Frank Stella retrospective. Christo’s Floating Piers (2016) Despite the Whitney’s rapid rise, MoMA and Female artists feature prominently in our survey. on Lake Iseo—the New York-based artist’s first the Met continue to lead the league in New York. At the Guggenheim Bilbao, Louise Bourgeois’s Cells Coutdoor installation since 2005—was the world’s MoMA remains at the top, thanks to staffers who attracted around 4,600 visitors a day. The Japanese most-visited work of art last year. Christo erected performed each afternoon over a long weekend artist Yayoi Kusama, who in 2014 proved a phenom- 3km of fabric-covered pontoons between an island last October in a production directed by the enon in South America and Asia, continued to pull and the shore and invited the public to walk on French choreographer Jérôme Bel. The event drew in the crowds—this time in Scandinavia. A show water. In total, 1.2 million people experienced the an audience of around 6,800 people a day, boosted that included her psychedelic clothing drew 3,000 site-specific installation over 16 days last summer in part by its central location in the museum’s visitors a day on average to the Louisiana Museum (an average of around 75,000 a day). atrium. Meanwhile, in MoMA’s galleries, a more of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, and the French museums were responsible for traditional show, Picasso Sculpture, co-organised Moderna Museet in Stockholm. And in Brazil, a many of the more conventional blockbusters with the Musée Picasso in Paris, attracted around show headlined by Frida Kahlo drew twice that last year. They sent shows around the world 5,900 visitors a day. daily figure to São Paulo’s Instituto Tomie Ohtake. that enticed huge audiences. An exhibition The Costume Institute at the Met staged, Surprisingly, all of these shows were eclipsed of Post-Impressionist works from the Musée by its own recent standards, a stripped-back by a free exhibition of work by a female contem- d’Orsay’s collection, organised in partnership presentation of haute couture meets high-tech porary artist from Australia. Patricia Piccinini’s with Spain’s Fundación Mapfre, drew big crowds with the exhibition Manus x Machina: Fashion in fantastical, mutant human and animal sculptures to Rio de Janeiro’s blockbuster mill, the Centro an Age of Technology, which drew around 6,100 drew 8,300 visitors a day to the CCBB in Rio de Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) (9,700 visitors a visitors a day. (In 2015, around 6,600 visitors a day Janeiro, 5,200 to its Brasilia venue and 3,100 to its day). Another 100 works by Renoir, mostly from visited the institute’s theatrical exhibition, China: São Paulo branch. That makes Piccinini the top the D’Orsay’s collection, attracted around 6,600 Through the Looking Glass.) contemporary artist in this year’s survey. visitors each day to the National Art Center in Tokyo. Meanwhile, around 4,100 daily visitors A HEAVY FRENCH ACCENT IN LONDON PARIS AND BRUSSELS SLOW went to see a show of works by Monet drawn AS MADRID SURGES from various Paris collections at the Hong Kong Impressionism remains a reliable crowd-pleaser. Museum of History. An exhibition with a heavy French accent—Paint- A drop in foreign tourism in Paris after a series of ing the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse—was terrorist attacks continues to have an impact on the STEP ASIDE, MOMA AND MET the most-attended paying exhibition in London. Louvre’s attendance, but the museum still tops our It attracted around 5,100 visitors a day to the survey with 7.4 million visitors in 2016 (down from The Whitney Museum of American Art, which Royal Academy of Arts, which makes it the UK 8.6 million in 2015). It has experienced a decline moved to its new Renzo Piano-designed home institution’s fourth most popular show since we of nearly two million visitors since 2014, which in downtown Manhattan in 2015, has put an end began our survey nearly two decades ago. (The art represents a significant dent in income from ticket to the city’s traditional duopoly of the Museum may have mainly come from France, but the show sales at a time when security costs have soared. of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan came from the US; it was co-organised by the The Musée d’Orsay also experienced a fall, down to Museum of Art. The Whitney hosted five of the Cleveland Museum of Art.) Terrorist attacks in three million visitors from 3.4 million in 2015. But ten most-attended exhibitions in New York in It was a quiet year for other major London the Centre Pompidou, which celebrates its 40th 2016. Its strong programme, prime location and institutions. Shows at the Victoria and Albert Paris and Brussels anniversary this year, is less dependent on visitors sweeping city views drew crowds to a series of Museum, the British Museum and the National from the US, China and elsewhere. Its attendance solo shows titled Open Plan on its cavernous Gallery did not match figures in previous years, had an impact on went up by 275,000, to around 3.3 million visitors. fifth floor. The experimental, five-part exhibition but Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern attracted just The terrorist attacks in Brussels last March COVER IMAGE (VISITORS TO HIERONYMUS BOSCH: VISIONS OF GENIUS AT THE NOORDBRABANTS MUSEUM, DEN BOSCH, FEBRUARY 2016): 2016): FEBRUARY BOSCH, DEN MUSEUM, NOORDBRABANTS THE AT GENIUS OF VISIONS BOSCH: HIERONYMUS TO (VISITORS IMAGE COVER turned over the largest column-free museum short of 3,000 visitors a day. visitor numbers also seem to have had an effect on the number of TATE © MODERN: TATE NEWS. LIVE MINGARDI/AWAKENING/ALAMY ANNA TONY © CHRISTO: IMAGES. DUNAND/AFP/GETTY EMMANUEL © p002-003_TAN2_Focus Attendance Christo.indd 2 22/03/2017 12:05 THE ART NEWSPAPER REVIEW Number 289, April 2017 3 WHERE IT ALL BEGAN: Artists and curators recall the works of art and exhibitions that drove them to make a career in art PAGES 4-5 Christo’s Floating Piers (2016) on Lake Iseo in Italy enjoyed a daily average of 75,000 visitors during its 16-day run last summer THE NUMBERS ARE IN: WHO CAME OUT ON TOP? TOP 100 ART MUSEUM ATTENDANCE: THE TOP 10 Musée du Louvre 1 PARIS 7,400,000 — † Metropolitan Museum of Art 2 NEW YORK 7,006,859 ▲+1 British Museum -1 3 LONDON 6,420,395 ▼ National Gallery 4 LONDON 6,262,839 ▲+1 Vatican Museums -1 5 VATICAN CITY 6,066,649 ▼ Tate Modern 6 LONDON 5,839,197 ▲+1 National Palace Museum -1 7 TAIPEI 4,665,725 ▼ National Gallery of Art 8 WASHINGTON, DC 4,261,391 — State Hermitage Museum 9 ST PETERSBURG 4,119,103 — Reina Sofía 10 MADRID 3,646,598 ▲+2 Still top: the artist JR made the Louvre’s pyramid † Includes attendance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s three venues: Fifth Avenue, the Cloisters and the Met Breuer “disappear”, helping it to stem a decline in visitors CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 MOST POPULAR EXHIBITIONS: THE TOP 20 Patricia Piccinini’s shows at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil’s venues in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia Daily Total Exhibition Venue City Dates and São Paulo made her the top contemporary artist in terms of visitor numbers * An asterisk indicates that entrance to the exhibition and the museum was free visitors to the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de 2015, which will please those who criticise the 9,700 749,679 * Post-Impressionist Masterpieces Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro 20 JUL-17 OCT Belgique, which includes several venues such as museum for being overcrowded. 8,340 444,425 * Patricia Piccinini: Consciousness Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro 27 APR-27 JUN the Musée Magritte and Musée d’Art Moderne. 8,288 638,205 * Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum: the Exhibition Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro 12 OCT 15-11 JAN 16 6,777 33,883 Artist’s Choice: Jérôme Bel Museum of Modern Art New York 27-31 OCT The Belgian museum saw its attendance drop by LACMA GROWS AND GROWS more than a third from 776,000 in 2015 to less 6,594 667,897 Renoir: Masterpieces National Art Center Tokyo Tokyo 27 APR-22 AUG than 497,000 in 2016. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) 6,525 592,854 Frida Kahlo: Surrealist Women in Mexico Instituto Tomie Ohtake São Paulo 26 SEP 15-10 JAN 16 Madrid’s major museums, on the other hand, has seen year-on-year growth in attendance 6,073 752,995 Manux x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Tech Metropolitan Museum of Art New York 5 MAY-5 SEP saw a surge.