Top 100 Art Museum Attendance 2013

[SHiRO]

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/215...ew_mode=scroll

[Pretext]

Interesting list Shiro

[Cirrus]

Art museums only?

[Crawford]

I think it's clear that free admission makes a big difference with attendance.

Also, the Vatican Museums has to be the least enjoyable experience among the world's most visited art museums. They have to do something with the circulation in those buildings; I know they weren't built as museums, but it's ridiculous.

[bnk]

I enjoyed the Vatican it was enormous. Ill go back again.

Also if you are there don't miss the chance to climb to the top of St. Peter's Basilica. Its kind of scary doing so, those that have done know what I mean.The most impressive church ever built IMO and Ive see many in Europe. Marble was taken from the Colosseum and other buildings to build the church. Very sad really.

But I could not get out of my head how much the Vatican museums pillared the world and Roman [ St. Peters used marble for the and other world antiquities.

The Uffizi in Firenze is likely in the top 5 best art museums in the world esp if one is into renaissance art. Im kind of supprised its not in the top ten in attendance. Its not that far from Rome and if you are in Italy your going to want to hit Florence anyway.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by bnk

I enjoyed the Vatican it was enormous.

Are you sure you aren't talking about the Vatican in general?

The Vatican Museums are hardly "enormous"; they've very cramped for a major museum, and you basically follow a single route, with no deviations. The entrance-way circulation is a disaster. It's like the opposite of the Louvre.

Originally Posted by bnk

The Uffizi in Firenze is likely in the top 5 best art museums in the world esp if one is into renaissance art. Im kind of supprised its not in the top ten in attendance.

The Uffizi is popular, and fantastic, but I think much smaller than the museums towards the top. It's also not very user friendly, because you need to get tickets in advance, and it has a relatively difficult setup.

Italian museums tend to be "difficult", IMO, and things like elevators, restaurants, drinking fountains, and clear circulation are rarely in evidence (though partially due to working with very old buildings).

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Are you sure you aren't talking about the Vatican in general?

The Vatican Museums are hardly "enormous"; they've very cramped for a major museum, and you basically follow a single route, with no deviations. The entrance-way circulation is a disaster. It's like the opposite of the Louvre.

...

Yes Im talking about the entire Vatican and St. Peters. I considered them an entire museum complex. A history to the old dark ages and backwardness compared to today. Not that we are at this time not backward but at least we advanced instead of regressed like Europe did after the fall of the Roman Empire.

[dc_denizen]

I think it would be interesting to rank the museums based on quality of museum collection/number of visitors.

Using this ranking, I think the Tate Modern would be on the low end, as would DC's national gallery.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I think it would be interesting to rank the museums based on quality of museum collection/number of visitors.

Using this ranking, I think the Tate Modern would be on the low end, as would DC's national gallery.

Is the National Gallery's collection unimpressive? I know it has huge visitor numbers, because it's free like all the museums surrounding the Washington Mall, and tourists tend to hop from one to the other.

Tate Modern is basically a German-style Kunsthalle, so it doesn't have a collection at all, I don't think; it's a space for mounting exhibits. The Kunsthalle format is rare in the U.S.

[dc_denizen]

^ I just think it's interesting that the Tate gets more visitors than the Prado, or the Moma.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

^ I just think it's interesting that the Tate gets more visitors than the Prado, the Hermitage, or the Moma.

I think the "free" part probably helps. The Tate is cool, but yeah, it's no Prado, not remotely close.

[Unity77]

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts' 2013 attendance was 679,753, which places it at #89, right behind the Seattle Art Museum. The MIA's attendance was up 48 percent from 2012.

[Shawn]

For American art museums, I am under the impression that in terms of quality and breadth of collections and in terms of endowments and financial backing, nothing touches the Met. There is a big gap, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago and the MFA in Boston, and then another group which includes the Smithsonian, MOMA, the Getty, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Of course there are many art museums in the US that can claim to have either the country's or world's biggest / most thorough collection of X, which is what makes visiting museums fun.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Shawn

For American art museums, I am under the impression that in terms of quality and breadth of collections and in terms of endowments and financial backing, nothing touches the Met. There is a big gap, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago and the MFA in Boston, and then another group which includes the Smithsonian, MOMA, the Getty, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Of course there are many art museums in the US that can claim to have either the country's or world's biggest / most thorough collection of X, which is what makes visiting museums fun.

The link below is pretty interesting. I was amazed to discover that the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston may well have the second largest endowment of any art museum in the US. I know it is a good museum, but I guess it is going to keep getting better with an endowment of over $1billion. Indianapolis and Kansas City also have museums with smaller but very impressive endowments.

http://www.thefinancialist.com/ameri...ons-slideshow/

[tayser]

Interesting the National Gallery of Victoria is the first in the list (from top down) to have multiple buildings. Wish they'd break it down - FYI NGV has two:

NGVi (international) - St. Kilda Road
NGVa (australian) - Federation Square

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/visit/two-locations

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Shawn

For American art museums, I am under the impression that in terms of quality and breadth of collections and in terms of endowments and financial backing, nothing touches the Met. There is a big gap, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago and the MFA in Boston, and then another group which includes the Smithsonian, MOMA, the Getty, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

I would think that MOMA, overall, would be the most globally respected museum in the U.S. It has relatively little breadth, however; it's obviously only art from the past century or so and only masterworks. But in its genre it's so far ahead of any other museum anywhere that it's taken as self-evident.

The other museums you mention are comprehensive museums, and in another classification, IMO. They attempt to span the definition of "art" and serve a broad range of constituencies.

[ue]

I'm frankly surprised MoMA isn't higher on the list.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ue

I'm frankly surprised MoMA isn't higher on the list.

Probably because it's (relative to some others at the top of the list) kind of small, cramped, and expensive.

But an expansion begins this year, increasing exhibit space by 30%, and hopefully improving circulation in the existing space.

https://www.moma.org/about/building

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Shawn

For American art museums, I am under the impression that in terms of quality and breadth of collections and in terms of endowments and financial backing, nothing touches the Met. There is a big gap, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago and the MFA in Boston, and then another group which includes the Smithsonian, MOMA, the Getty, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Of course there are many art museums in the US that can claim to have either the country's or world's biggest / most thorough collection of X, which is what makes visiting museums fun.

You're list is pretty good, but I would make a few changes. You are absolutely right about the Met and the huge gap. Some call it the greatest single museum in the world. I might agree, but the Louvre and Prado--in spite of not being nearly as encyclopedic--are both super close I would actually put MoMA at number two. And very comfortably at that. Not many American museums can claim to having the greatest collection of any genre of painting, mainly because modern America is relatively late to the art game. But the MoMA has, without a shadow of a doubt, the best collection of modern art anywhere. And by a wide margin. Keep in mind that modern art is an all-ecompassing term that includes many many genres, and also that modern art is (in my not-so-humble opinion) the most wonderfully creative period in all of art history; and it stands to reason that MoMA is absolutely one of the greatest museums on the planet. After that I'd put in the National Gallery of Art, which does every period of Western Art spectacularly well, often better than the Met. Then come MFAB and AIC, both world class museums, with the Frick right behind them. No American museum punches above its weight like the Frick does (Isabella Stewart, Norton Simon and Barnes are all distant challengers). Then I'd put Philly, Getty, Kansas City, Cleveland, Kimbell Whitney, MFAH and LA County; roughly in that order.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Probably because it's (relative to some others at the top of the list) kind of small, cramped, and expensive.

But an expansion begins this year, increasing exhibit space by 30%, and hopefully improving circulation in the existing space.

https://www.moma.org/about/building

Ah, I see.

Another thing: I'm surprised SFMoMA isn't on the list. Doesn't it get well over 600,000 visitors per year?