Most Popular Art Museums in the World
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The Art Newspaper has released their annual list of the most popular art museums in the world, with the Louvre in Paris coming in first place with an estimated 8,300,000 visitors.
The most popular exhibition was at the Tokyo National Museum in Japan which attracted more than 10,000 people each day. It was more of a single painting than an exhibition, which makes the figure even more remarkable. Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Annunciation” was loaned by the Uffizi gallery in Florence.
“For the fourth year running, the Tokyo National Museum tops the list. Tokyo routinely produces enormous visitor figures, thanks to a combination of vast exhibition spaces and a 35 million-strong conurbation. But “Leonardo” was even higher than 2005’s record-breaking attendance for “Hokusai” at the same museum, which averaged 9,436 a day.” Art Newspaper
Here’s the top 20 most popular art museums in the world compiled by Art Newspaper. The list below includes the number of visitors, name of the museum, and the city that the museum is located in.
8,300,000 - Louvre Paris
5,509,425 - Centre Pompidou Paris
5,191,840 - Tate Modern London
4,837,878 - British Museum London
4,547,353 - Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
4,518,413 - National Gallery of Art Washington
4,310,083 - Vatican Museums Vatican City
4,159,485 - National Gallery London
3,166,509 - Musée d’Orsay Paris
2,652,924 - Museo Nacional del Prado Madrid
2,650,551 - National Palace Museum Taipei
2,435,300 - Victoria and Albert Museum London
2,395,075 - State Hermitage Museum St Petersburg
2,232,475 - Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Glasgow
2,219,554 - Museum of Modern Art New York
2,133,149 - Field Museum Chicago
1,772,255 - Tokyo National Museum Tokyo
1,674,607 - CaxiaForum Barcelona Barcelona
1,650,000 - Moscow Kremlin Museums Moscow
1,649,969 - Museum of Fine Arts Houston
There’s a PDF file of the full list of art museums, exhibitions, and how the list is compiled here.
I probably should get out of the house (Australia) more often as I haven’t visited any of the top 20 art museums of the world. My problem is that when I do leave Australia it is to countries that are not known for their impressive art collections. Not everything is about art though.
>> Art Museums
A Sign of the Times
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With contemporary artistic practice progressing and evolving at a fever pitched rate combined with the rapidly growing art market that rewards innovation, uniqueness and experimentation, it is becoming harder and harder for artists to stand out from the crowd and get noticed. The art market boom has caused an unprecedented appetite for contemporary art that has resulted in an increase in the number of artists being marketed by galleries and dealers. To compensate for the increased competition for representation and attention, artists are now needing to really think outside the box and come up with ways of attracting as much as attention as possible without affecting their credibility.
My research into this subject was sparked by a press release that I received in my inbox that was announcing the unveiling of a new artwork at a secret location in Beverley Hills in May by an artist who goes by the name of Rophar (http://www.rophar.com). What is so special about this painting that it needs to be unveiled I hear you ask, well, for starters it is adorned with over 250 carats of diamonds including multiple 4,5,6 and 7 carat stones with an accumulated value of $10 million dollars. Oh, and the asking price is US$110,000,000. According to the press release this painting, titled “Menagerie” has been commissioned by a fabulously wealthy countess who prefers to remain anonymous. How intriguing.
Another artist who has attracted his fair share of attention is Tim Patch who, as his pseudonym Pricasso suggests, paints portraits of people using his penis. To create his work Patch dips his penis in paint and applies it to the canvas, which is smoother than the average painting surface to prevent any un-necessary chafing. Pricasso?s controversial methods have gained him extensive press and fame all over the world resulting in a high demand for his “services” at events such as Sexpo where he paints in front of an audience. This year Pricasso has also entered one of his paintings into the highly prestigious, and traditional, Australian Archibald Portrait Prize. Guess whose Archibald Prize entry received the most publicity and media attention, none other than Pricasso.
Artists Anthony White and Marcel Salathe, of the infamous duo Salathe and White, recently started an ambitious and unique project that involves auctioning off their collaborative paintings along with a guarantee to buy them back at a specific price, which is indicated on the painting, upon the safe return of said painting during a specified month. According to the artists - each painting is a bond or more precisely a zero coupon bond?. The first “bond” painting auctioned off had a face value of US$1063 and sold for US$1286. The result of the unique concept and successful sale was significant media attention.
All these artists have attracted attention to their work and gained exposure by going above and beyond the traditional expectations of what an artist should be and do. People are receiving so much stimulation from tv, movies, computers, mobile phones, the internet etc. that the act of entertaining ones self by enjoying and appreciating a painting has become somewhat obsolete, especially for the young people of today. In order to be commercially successful many artists are not able to just be artists any more but are having to take on the role of entertainer, promoter and advertiser. A sign of the times I suppose.
Image: “The Countess” by Rophar
Created by Nicholas Forrest On 02/28/08 At 09:03 AM
Art News Online
Comments OffHere’s some art news missed, happening, or coming up from around the web.
- The Independent talks about the art of stealing art and why people do it.
- Your art not selling? Raise your prices.. double them.. triple them.. and sell more art! from Clint Watson’s blog.
- Helly mentioned that there’s a Banksy exhibition starting this week at the Adipa Gallery in London. It’s an exhibition that is “independent of Banksy and the artist is not involved in any way.” There’s more on it at the Guardian.
- Here’s Duchamp’s piss trough being referred to as ethereal, pure, virginal and having the qualities of the Virgin Mary from a Renaissance painting. It might be an influential work, but you can only read so many things into a signed urinal before sounding silly.
- The “From Russia” exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts has created some interesting debate about looted art over at the Art Newspaper.
Monday Morning Mashup #3
Comments Off“Strange Fruit”, 9.5″x11″ mixed media collage $200.00 USD
The Night Shift - painting every day, after dark….Check in every weekday for a new work of original art.
Cal Lane’s Sweet Crude Oil
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I like art that makes us look at ordinary, dull things that most people pass by everyday.. or things that we find objectionable or even disgusting in a new light. Part of the curse or blessing of being an artist is to notice things that most people don’t.
I find an endless fascination in things like smoke, the bubbles in a bath, or the passing clouds, which probably labels me as an artist that is interested in stupid stuff that should be seen in passing, but these are the things that blow me away. Even a walk in the park that I have passed through a thousand times can see me frozen still by a tree that is lit perfectly by the sun, or composed in a way that looks more perfect than any painting could ever be. A simple walk can be visual overload, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I pity those that don’t see the ordinary as extraordinary as it must be such a dull existance.
Anyway, my point is not to ramble on about my walks through the park but to mention an exhibition about an artist that has used an ugly medium to create something beautiful. Cal Lane has used 55 gallon oil drums and industrial relics to create delicate floral and lace influenced works of art.
In preparation for “Sweet Crude,” Cal Lane wielded the plasma cutter to transform a host of industrial relics –from the small (shovels and gas cans) to the large (dumpsters, 55-gallon drums, car doors) to the architectural (I-beams)– into works of art. The result of Lane’s unique sculptural process is best described (in her own artist statement) as “an image of opposition that creates a balance –as well as a clash– by comparing and contrasting ideas and materials. This is manifested in a series of Industrial Doilies, pulling together industrial and domestic life as well as relationships of strong and delicate, masculine and feminine, practical and frivolity, ornament and function.”
She is exhibiting at the Patricia Faure Gallery in Santa Monica from the 8th of March through to the 12th of April.
>> Art Exhibitions
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