THE ART NEWSPAPER LTD. EST. 1983, VOL. XXIX NO. 322 APRIL 2020 WWW.THEARTNEWSPAPER.COM SPECIAL REPORT: The defi nitive guide to the world's most-visited museums and shows ART ART’’SS MOSTMOST POPULARPOPULAR Exhibition and museum visitor figures 2019 2 SPECIAL REPORT Number 322, April 2020 I THE ART NEWSPAPER Art’s most popular The results are in… Ai Weiwei is world’s most popular artist But Japanese audiences also appreci- a loan from the Vatican at New York’s by the Dutch master in its collection The Chinese artist was a hit in Brazil and records ate art created closer to home, judging Metropolitan Museum of Art (3,099 vis- contributed to a record year: 2.7 million were broken in London and Paris—but is this the by the daily total who turned up to the itors a day) and a UK travelling show of visited the Amsterdam museum, includ- Tokyo National Museum to see works drawings lent by The Queen. The Royal ing 455,000 (3,922 a day) who went to All fi nal year of museum visitor growth? that told the story of the Japanese Collection declined to provide figures the Rembrandts. The Museo Nacional del Buddhist monk who made To-ji Temple for its stops at The Queen’s galleries at Prado chose to honour Rembrandt with By Emily Sharpe and José da Silva a centre for Shingon Esoteric Buddhism Buckingham Palace and Holyroodhouse a show that compared the Leiden-born (7,697). However, the Nara National so we cannot quantify the tour’s overall artist’s work with that of fellow 17th-cen- Museum still stages the most visited popularity, but the turnout for smaller tury heavyweights Velázquez and t’s offi cial: Ai Weiwei is the world’s Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the show in Japan with its annual display versions of the show at Manchester Art Vermeer (4,553). But despite being the most popular artist. The Chinese Moving Image, where it debuted in of treasures from the Shoso-in Temple. Gallery (2,677) and Glasgow’s Kelvingrove most attended show in Spain and coin- dissident’s travelling survey in 2014, the 400-piece show featured sto- Although its 71st edition drew 13,140 Art Gallery and Museum (1,409) demon- ciding with the Prado’s 200th anniver- Brazil—his first in the South ryboards, concept drawings, paintings visitors a day (227,133 total) in just three strate a healthy public interest. sary, the Madrid museum still managed American country and his largest and maquettes for fi lm favourites such weeks, the religious nature of the objects Visitors to the Kunsthistorisches to fall shy of its 2018 record attendance, Iexhibition to date—was a runaway hit. as Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda. A puts it in a class of its own and so it is not Museum in Vienna more than doubled of nearly 3.7 million, by 175,000 visitors. More than 1.1 million people came to see whopping 11,380 visitors a day went to it included in our exhibition rankings. to 1.8 million thanks to its blockbusting the exhibition that started at Oca in São in Rio, while a further 9,277 daily saw it in Bruegel show marking the 450th anni- Man on the Moon Paulo with stops in Belo Horizonte and Belo Horizonte. The CCBB last topped our King Tut on tour versary of the artist’s death. Seen by Last year was a stellar time for lunar- Curitiba before landing at Centro Cul- survey in 2016 with another trio of shows, Tutankhamun took Paris by storm with 408,000 people (3,923 visitors a day), the themed art, with museums honouring tural Banco do Brasil’s (CCBB’s) space in including one on Post-Impressionist mas- the arrival of a touring show billed as the exhibition broke the museum’s previous the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Rio de Janeiro, where it was seen by 9,172 terpieces (9,700 visitors a day). The CCBB, last chance to see the Boy King’s grave record: a 2005 display on the Spanish landing with a surprising array of exhi- visitors a day (around 600,000 in total). which hosts free exhibitions at its four goods before they return permanently painter Francisco Goya (3,460). The bitions. The Apollo’s Muse photography Ai’s greatest hits included his series of locations in Brazil, had nearly 5.6 million to their new home in Cairo’s Grand Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium show at the Met was seen by 3,038 a day, large-scale iron sculptures cast from the visitors in 2019—a 28% increase on 2018 Egyptian Museum, which is due to open capitalised on having the world’s second while Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of roots of endangered Pequi Vinagreiro and a 36% increase on 2017. later this year. Some 7,735 visitors a day largest collection of Bruegel paintings Modern Art’s exhibition—which asked trees found in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Japan’s enduring appetite for Western (1.4 million overall) caught the block- by offering a series of initiatives to visitors “to join the Louisana on a trip Sadly, the display became all the more masters is shown by the success of the buster at the Grande Halle de la Villette, coincide with the anniversary, includ- to the Moon” with its eclectic display poignant against the backdrop of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum’s exhi- which featured everything from golden ing digital experiences and a “Bruegel of everything from Norman Foster’s fi res that ravaged the Amazon rainfor- bitions on Edvard Munch (8,931 visitors pharaonic fl ip fl ops to shabtis (funerary trail” throughout the Brussels museum. 3D-printed Moon base designs to space est last summer, peaking in August a day) and Gustav Klimt (7,808), figurines) of every shape and size. It These projects, along with the muse- suits by the designer and professor Neri when the Rio show opened. which claim fourth and fifth broke Paris’s previous Tut record, set um’s record-breaking Dalí and Magritte Oxman—was seen by 2,524 visitors a Speaking to The Art Newspaper place overall in our survey. back in 1967, for an exhibition at the Petit exhibition that fi nished in 2020, and so day. In total, nearly 780,000 punters fl ew in December, Ai said: “Roots Numbers for the Munch show Palais visited by 1.2 million people. The will feature in our next survey, contrib- to the Moon—a fi gure that would rise if are the last evidence of what we were bolstered by a tempera- touring exhibition, which began at the uted to an impressive 60% increase in we factored in shows that closed in 2020. have: a sad eulogy for human and-oil on cardboard version California Science Center in Los Angeles the museum’s attendance (1.1 million). stupidity.” of The Scream from 1910 that at the end of 2018 (2,379 visitors a day), Museums in the Netherlands and Louvre on top—again Ai’s triumph helped Brazil and was given a rare ticket to travel has since travelled across the Channel to beyond went all out to mark the 350th The Musée du Louvre once again tops the CCBB secure the top three from Oslo’s Munch Museum, England, where we expect the London anniversary of Rembrandt’s death. The our survey in terms of overall attendance positions in our 2019 attendance which, as we went to print, was leg to break records in our 2020 survey. Rijksmuseum’s dusting-off of all works with 9.6 million visitors, 600,000 less survey, Art’s Most Popular, which still due to reopen this autumn than its all-time record set in 2018 but ranks shows by the number of in a new building. A travelling Births and deaths impressive nonetheless. Ongoing pro- visitors a day. Occupying the show of Impressionist works Anniversaries always help pull in the tests throughout the city likely contrib- fi rst and second spots is a free from London’s Courtauld crowds and 2019 was chock-a-block uted to four of Paris’s fi ve most popular travelling exhibition that Gallery was also a hit with major milestones. The Louvre’s museums experiencing drops last year offered a behind-the- in Tokyo (3,802 a Leonardo bonanza was the jewel in the except for the city’s second most visited, scenes look at day)—although crown of exhibitions commemorating Tate Modern and the Musée d’Orsay, which had nearly 3.7 DreamWorks. not as popular the quincentenary of the master’s death million—an 11% increase on 2018. Co-organised as the version but because it closed earlier this year, the Tate Britain both The National Museum of China in by the ani- at Paris’s record 1.1 million who braved the crowds Beijing retains second position overall mation Fondation will be factored into our 2020 survey. had their best with 7.4 million visitors, followed by the studio and Louis Vuitton Among other notable Leonardo celebra- Vatican Museums (6.9 million), which (4,712). tions were a single-painting display of year to date places third for the fi rst time. It swapped QUINTANILHA CAROL © WEIWEI: AI KRIEF. NICOLAS © TUTANKHAMUN: 3 Exhibition and d o inue n pag nt e 8 museum visitor co figures 2019 TOP 10 Most popular art museums Musée du Louvre NO CHANGE 1 PARIS 9,600,000 National Museum of China NO CHANGE 2 BEIJING 7,390,000 Vatican Museums 3 VATICAN CITY 6,882,931 +1 † Metropolitan Museum -1 4 NEW YORK 6,479,548 British Museum 5 LONDON 6,239,983 +1 Tate Modern -1 6 LONDON 6,098,340 National Gallery NO CHANGE 7 LONDON 6,011,007 State Hermitage 8 ST PETERSBURG 4,956,529 +1 Reina Sofía 9 MADRID 4,425,699 +2 National Gallery of Art -2 10 WASHINGTON, DC 4,074,403 Last year’s 35-day government shut- down in Washington, DC had a signifi - † Does not include attendance fi gures for the Met Breuer cant impact on visits to the city’s pub- (290,592) but does include fi gures for the Met Cloisters licly funded museums, which closed Visitors head down the Vatican Museums’s famous for most of January.