Visitors to the exhibition at the entrance of MC Escher at the Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro (the most visited exhibition in 2011)
Source: theartnewspaper.com

Website The Art Newspaper has published statistics on the most visited museums and exhibitions the world over the past year. Such research agency conducts the British since 1996. So, if in 1996 to enter the top ten, the museum's exhibition was quite three thousand visitors a day, then in 2011 the threshold rose to nearly 7000 people a day. Among the leaders was, for example, the exhibition "Alexander McQueen: Wild Beauty" at New York's Metropolitan Museum - dedicated to the departed from us in 2010, the great designer ( 4th place among the show ). Every day it came to look on average 8000 people, and for the entire period of exposure of 660,000 spectators attended. This, in addition, improved attendance rates and annual Met: in this museum in 2011 came to more than 6 million people - a record number for the museum since the beginning of the calculations The Art Newspaper (1996) and hundreds of thousands more than in 2010 (5.2 million).

as compared with 1996 in the museum exhibition is now a lot more visitors to come, experts say The Art Newspaper. In 1996, the 10 most popular exhibitions visited a total of 4 million, in 2011 this figure had grown to almost 6 million.

number one in 2011 was not European, American or Japanese Exhibition , as one might expect: the palm went to the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil's - CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro. Located in the heart of the capital of the former bank building, now a cultural center has taken over the past year at least three exhibitions, which were included in the top ten most popular museum exhibitions. All of them were free, and most of them visited the exhibition of "The Magical World of Escher" (9700 visitors a day - a place of exhibitions ).

Brazil is interested in, and contemporary art. Billionaire mining of Bernardo Paz (Bernardo Paz) for the year drew 770,000 visitors in its fleet of modern art Inhotim in southeastern Brazil. And already mentioned the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center in Rio show master performances Laurie Anderson (Laurie Anderson) visited every day on average 6930 people ( 9th place among the show ), and the exposure of Japanese artist Mariko Mori (Mariko Mori), who lives now in New York, a little more every day admiring viewers - about 6990 people ( 7th place among the show ).

noteworthy and the National Folk Museum of Korea in Seoul, first entered the lists of The Art Newspaper. Four exhibitions of the museum were collected by 9000 people a day. Such popularity is due to the fact that the museum is located in the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which attracts up to 2 million people a year. Exhibitions of the Korean Folklore Museum, thus, not included in the basic rating of the museum project, but take place from 4th to 9th in the category of so-called "big ticket" - that is, their attendance is associated with a visit to a museum complex more size. For example, the first in this section is Bernard Vienna Exhibition at Versailles, but we can not strictly distinguish which of the 4 million visitors come to look at the palace, and who is more interested in contemporary art in the palatial territories.

The traditional annual autumn exhibition of artifacts from the treasury of the temple Todaydzi at the National Museum of the city of Nara in Japan, as in the past year, has become the most visited exhibition of the world: 17 days of it saw 239,600 people - more than 14,300 people a day. But, as before, the overall rating of the museum The Art Newspaper decided not to include it, because the main purpose of significant guests were not admiring the works of art and objects of religious worship. About a dozen artifacts were first presented to the public.

Otherwise, a thrust to the Japanese culture in 2011 is strongly influenced by natural disasters: the March earthquake reduced the attendance of many museums. The National Art Center in Tokyo was forced to cut their working hours in connection with which the exhibition of masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-Impressionist collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington attended an average of "only" 5000 people a day. This is not so much when you consider that an exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionists from the Museum d'Orsay, which was held in the same museum in Tokyo in 2010, came every day more than 10,000 people.

Overall in the list of the most popular museum projects dominate the exhibition of Impressionist, Modern and Old Masters. But contemporary art is not far behind. In 2011, Claude Monet exhibition in Paris' Grand Palais visited 913,000 people - 7600 people a day ( 5th place among the show ). And the new installation Anish Kapoor's "Leviathan" in the same Grand Palais came to look about the same - 6960 people a day ( 8th place among the exhibitions ). For comparison: in 1997 the most visited exhibition of contemporary art was a retrospective of Jasper Johns at MoMA - she was seen on average 2700 people a day.

in 2011 to install Ai Weiwei "sunflower seeds" Turbine Hall at Tate came to see 1.2 million visitors - with them, unlike the fans of Anish Kapoor at the Grand Palais is not charged an entrance fee.

In the U.S., the crisis in 2008 forced the museum once again to think about how to attract visitors. Some museums, such as the Metropolitan and MoMA, organized a very popular Picasso exhibition in 2010 (Metropolitan) and the abstract expressionists in 2011 (MoMA) from its rich collections. At last came the exhibition of 5660 people a day, a total of 1.2 million saw it (the most visited exhibition of MoMA last year). And the Seattle Art Museum, on the other side of the North American continent have preferred to put all their savings on a temporary exhibition of works by Picasso from the Paris National Picasso Museum. The risk paid off: The museum is not only returned the money to hire a canvas, but also significantly improved its financial position. On average, the exhibition visited by about 5500 people a day (a total of 406 000), which has made the Seattle Art Museum, the most visited museum in America after New York's MoMA and the Metropolitan Titans.

top ten most popular museum exhibitions 2011 Exhibition closes masterpieces from the collection of the Prado, which took place at the State Hermitage Museum in February - May. She visited 6649 people per day (530 thousand people for all time). At the 12th place ranking in the main, another exhibition of the Hermitage - Photographer Annie Leibovitz (5757 people a day, only 440 thousand people).

If not talk about individual exhibitions, and a attendance of museums in general, the statistics would look like this is quite predictable. In the first place, as in the past year, the Louvre, whose attendance has increased by 400,000, and is equal to 8.9 million people per year. Centre Pompidou in Paris and gained weight - from 3.1 to 3.6 million annual attendance ( 8th place among the museums ).

Metropolitan Museum of Art As we have said before, stepped in last year six millionth threshold for attendance, thanks to McQueen show ( 2nd place among the museums ). In the list of the ten most visited museums, there are the traditional players of Albion: British Museum (5.8 million people, third place ), the National Gallery in London (5.3 million, 4 - th ) and the Tate Modern (4.8 million, 5th ). MoMA, although it has experienced numerous influxes of visitors to temporary exhibitions, scored slightly lower than in 2010 (2.8 million people in 2011 against 3.1 million in 2010).

On the seventh line Taiwan was the Imperial Palace Museum with 3.8 million visitors. Madrid Prado Museum has managed to attract for the year 2.9 million people - 200 thousand more than in 2010 ( 11th place among the museums ). This can be explained not only the transition to a seven-day workweek, but also worthy exhibitions of Renoir and Rubens.

on line 12 - Hermitage, whose attendance was 2.88 million people per year. The Moscow Kremlin 1.7 million visitors ( 21th place among the museums ), and the State Tretyakov Gallery - 1.34 million ( 34th place).

Prepared by Mary Onuchina, AI

Sources : artinvestment.ru