Metropolitan Museum of Art Hours Friday March 30 2018

In an ordinary yr, more than ix million visitors jostle for position in front of the Mona Lisa or Delacroix'south Liberty Leading the People at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and half a one thousand thousand fashion-frontwards members of the public turn out for the leap opening of the Costume Institute's annual exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Simply there was nothing ordinary virtually 2020 and the widespread devastation caused past the global Covid-19 pandemic. Our almanac survey reveals that terminal year overall attendance of the world's 100 most- visited fine art museums dropped past a staggering 77% in 2020—from 230 million in 2019 to simply 54 one thousand thousand as museums worldwide were forced to close.

Exhibition company figures accept been at the heart of The Art Newspaper's annual survey for more than than 20 years. But our survey shifted focus this year when shows were postponed or cancelled. So, while we have mentioned a few key exhibitions staged pre-, post- and in-between lockdowns, this information is included as context for the crux of the report: overall museum visitor figures.

Museums were close for a staggering 41,000 days in total—more than than a century'south worth of visits missed last year

The twelvemonth began with reports from Wuhan about the recently identified Covid-nineteen virus that was spreading rapidly across the Chinese city. By the end of January, the town was in lockdown and the World Wellness Organization (WHO) had declared the outbreak "a Public Health Emergency of International Concern". Staff at one of Wuhan's largest museums, the Hubei Provincial Museum, which was closed from 23 January to 13 June, were not allowed to travel to and from work. So its director Fang Qin packed up pillows and cooking equipment and joined more 70 staff in setting upwardly camp at the museum for several months in social club to take care of its drove.

Beijing's National Museum of China is the second most popular museum in our survey with 1.6 meg visitors. The museum closed for three months from 25 January every bit the Beijing regime cancelled Chinese New Yr celebrations. When the museum did reopen, its maximum capacity was reduced by 90% at showtime—from a potential 30,000 to 3,000 visitors per day—and then gradually eased every bit the twelvemonth went on to 8,000 per twenty-four hour period past August. The 2d most-visited Asian museum, and a newcomer to our survey, is Japan's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Fine art in Kanazawa, which had 971,000 visitors in 2020. Information technology was closed for an boosted 66 days last yr, which puts it at the lower terminate of the closure spectrum and reflects the country'south eschewing of strict lockdowns.

Of the museums we polled, more than than 280 provided the number of days they closed last year considering of the wellness crisis. On average, museums were shut for an actress 145 days, which adds up to a staggering 41,000 days in total—more than a century's worth of museum visits missed last year.

European crises

France and Germany were the beginning European countries to confirm Covid-nineteen cases, and Italia and Spain imposed the initial nationwide lockdowns in Europe. By mid-March, as the WHO officially designated Covid-nineteen equally a pandemic, an estimated 250 million Europeans went into their beginning lockdown. While government responses varied, with French republic and Italy facing longer confinement periods and stricter travel restrictions than, for example, Denmark and Finland, on boilerplate the European museums we surveyed were closed for 112 actress days in 2020. While nearly 83 million people went to the elevation 100 European museums in 2019, the 2020 figure was just 24 million.

European cities saw a steep decline in international tourism concluding year, especially during the lucrative summer months. Paris received only 5% of its usual number of tourists terminal summer, co-ordinate to a report past the United nations's Globe Tourism Organization. The French uppercase'southward 3 major art museums—the Louvre, Center Pompidou and Musée d'Orsay—saw a 73% drop in attendance overall, downwardly to 4.5 million from 16.5 million in 2019. Around 2.7 meg visited the Louvre, which, despite a 72% dip, is the almost-visited museum in our survey. This admirable effigy was helped past its once-in-a-lifetime Leonardo exhibition, which closed in February. It drew more than 10,000 visitors a twenty-four hour period, making it the museum's most-visited show ever. Despite this, the Louvre reported losses of around €90m in 2020. The Fondation Louis Vuitton was closed for a whopping 226 days and had simply 253,000 visitors, down from 800,000 in 2019.

Lost tourism and lockdowns also affected Spain'southward big museums: the Prado in Madrid saw a 76% drib (from 3.five million in 2019 to 852,000), while the Reina Sofía's figures decreased by 72% (from 4.four 1000000 in 2019 to i.2 million). The pandemic forced the Prado to close for an extra 85 days, reopening at less than half its company capacity, while the Reina Sofía was closed for an additional 80 days and reopened at just 33% capacity. Meanwhile, visits to Italian heavyweights—the Vatican Museums, and the Uffizi and Accademia galleries in Florence—dropped by 81%, 72% and 81% respectively. Despite being airtight for an extra 193 days—one of the highest closure rates of the European museums surveyed—attendance at the Palazzo Reale in Milan dropped by only 48%, to around 391,000. The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin was closed for around the same amount of time, 186 days, which resulted in a 73% drop in visitors.

Bruce Nauman'south Washing Hands Normal (1996) was on show concluding yr at Tate Modernistic Photo: Tate Photography, Matt Greenwood. Artwork © Bruce Nauman/ARS; NY and DACS London

British ups and downs

In the Uk, London's Tate Mod was the near visited museum, a position held by the British Museum (BM) every year for the by decade except for 2018, when the Tate pipped it to the top spot thanks, in part, to a Picasso exhibition seen past half a million people. Final year's change was likely due to the BM being closed for 208 days as opposed to Tate Modernistic'south 173.

Many of the UK'due south major museums rely heavily on tourism: the BM'due south audience was made up of 77% foreign visitors for the 2019/20 financial year, while the National Gallery's is usually "effectually 60% annually", according to a spokeswoman. Provisional data from the Uk's Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that, in the 2nd quarter of 2020, when the Uk went into its first lockdown, the number of visits by overseas residents fell by 96% compared to the same menstruation in 2019.

On average, UK museums saw a 77% drop in attendance, and were airtight on average for more than half of 2020. When institutions eventually reopened, all major museums had restrictions on company numbers. Although they varied, most museums were typically simply able to operate at around 20% to 30% of normal capacity.

The steep decline in footfall contributed to huge financial losses. The self-generated income of the Tate's four museums fell from £94m in the 2019/20 financial yr to an estimated £38m for 2020/21, a 60% drop. Similarly, the Victoria and Albert Museum saw a 63% loss of income, with its self-generated funds falling from £64m to £24m. The BM would not supply its raw figures, merely a spokesperson says that income generated by visitors has plummeted by more xc% of the budgeted sum. The National Gallery emerged relatively unscathed, losing just £14m, according to a museum spokesperson. It is important to note that, every bit well as reflecting loss of income through attendance (tickets sales, retail, etc.), these figures also include donations, which can be generated without getting people through the door. Most fortunate was the National Portrait Gallery, which had already planned to close for major building works in June merely brought this forrad past three months because of the pandemic.

However, in that location were some success stories. A touring exhibition of Tutankhamun treasures from the Thou Egyptian Museum in Cairo was seen past more than 580,000 people at the Saatchi Gallery, despite acme tickets costing nigh £40, while Tate Modern's Olafur Eliasson testify was seen by more than half a million people.

Children playing exterior the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which was closed for more than vii months and saw visitor numbers drop by 88% Photograph: William Volcov/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News

The American motion picture

The U.s. has the grim stardom of having both the highest number of Covid-19 related deaths (around 550,000) and the most cases in the globe. Considering each country sets its ain social distancing restrictions and safety protocols, US museums have had to attach to widely different rules. The number of extra days institutions were closed final year ranged from 75 (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas) to 293 (National Museum of the American Indian in New York). Many Californian museums closed last March and remained close for nearly, if not all, of last twelvemonth, whereas Crystal Bridges reopened in June. That beingness said, the Bentonville museum had 353,000 visitors, one-half the number of 2019. Earlier this year a spokeswoman for San Francisco's De Young museum, which had 78% fewer visitors in 2020 as a result of existence closed an extra 191 days, told The Art Newspaper that it was "facing losses of around $750,000 in revenue for every calendar month we demand to stay closed". And the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has sought to convalesce some of its financial burden by putting its managing director's $2m house on the market.

With 2.2 1000000 visitors, New York's four art behemoths—the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1.1 million), the Museum of Modern Fine art (706,000), the Whitney Museum of American Art (233,000) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (154,000)—account for 91% of the ii.4 million visitors to the urban center'due south museums we surveyed. The aforementioned institutions saw 11 million visitors in 2019, with the Guggenheim seeing the most severe drib at 88%. While many New York museums were closed for around six months, the Guggenheim was shut for more than 7 months and reopened at only 25% capacity. The health crisis put both a wrench in the Met's plans to mark its 150th ceremony and contributed to a loss in revenue of effectually $150m. But since reopening at 25% chapters in August, visitors, 90% of whom are local, boilerplate at four,065 daily.

Museums in Washington, DC, faced a second twelvemonth of unexpected closures, having already been plagued by regime shutdowns in late 2018 and early 2019. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) was airtight for an extra 138 days, while the Smithsonian American Fine art Museum (SAAM) primary edifice and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), which share an entrance, were close for an additional 225 days. The attendance at the NGA dropped past 82% to 730,000 from four.1 million in 2019, and the SAAM and NPG had 321,000, which is 81% down from 2019'southward 1.7 million.

Brazil has emerged as an epicentre of the pandemic, with the nearly Covid-xix cases afterwards the United states. Data from the 19 Brazilian institutions nosotros surveyed shows that museums were airtight for an average of 203 days last year, which is more than any other state in our report. The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, the cultural arm of the state'south largest bank that stages crowd-pleasing exhibitions across its locations in Brasília, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, had a combined attendance of 1.6 million. This is a 72% decrease from 5.6 meg in 2019. Visitation to the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (140,738), the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (44,176) and the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (135,518) declined by 81%, 79% and 75% respectively. The Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo saw a 45% drop in omnipresence to 309,760. Despite a surge in Covid-nineteen cases, Brazilian arts institutions were facing mounting pressure level from the government to remain open as we went to press. Throughout the wellness crisis, the country's president Jair Bolsonaro has pushed for Brazil's businesses to stay open, and concluding calendar month he suspended vital cultural funding in regions with Covid-xix restrictions.

New Zealand triumph: the watershed exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora: Gimmicky Māori Art was the largest prove in the 133-year history of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The state'south museums were closed for less time than the global boilerplate Photo: David St George. Courtesy of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

New Zealand success

New Zealand has been 1 of the peachy success stories of the pandemic, thanks to the early implementation of restrictions, with several quick and astringent lockdowns. Its museums were closed for less time than the global average and on the whole faced no limits on capacity when they reopened, unlike most other museums worldwide. The to the lowest degree affected of its major museums was the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, which was closed for 54 days, and saw a drop in visitors of just 28%. The state'southward virtually popular establishment, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongare-wa in Wellington, had about 838,000 visitors—46% less than in 2019. And although the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki had to close for 101 days and cancel major Picasso and Monet exhibitions due to travel restrictions, in that location was a silver lining. The museum decided to "bring forward and dilate Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, a watershed exhibition of art past 111 of our Indigenous artists", says the director Kirsten Lacy. The exhibition, she adds, was "the largest [show] in [the museum'south] unabridged 133-year history".

While the information in our survey reveals the devastation the pandemic wrought on art institutions effectually the world, we would like to admit those direct affected past museums' closures and cuts: specifically, we would like to thank the hundreds of press officers who diligently filled in our survey and answered our many questions at a time when many are working from home, take had their hours reduced and seen colleagues furloughed.

• Read all our Visitor Figures 2020 content here

• Venues marked with a dagger (†) indicate institutions with more than than one museum building. Nosotros take separated the venues to give a more authentic reflection of footfall. The institutions' boosted venues and combined totals are: Metropolitan Museum of Art includes attendance for Met Cloisters (61,316) just not for the Met Breuer (41,015) which closed permanently on 13 March 2020; NGV International (NGV Australia: 130,323; full for NGV: 767,186); SAAM shares a building with the NPG as well as having a 2d co-operative, the Renwick Gallery (Renwick Gallery: 66,144; full for both SAAM branches: 387,430); MMCA Seoul (MMCA Gwacheon: 154,333; MMCA Deoksugung: 134,868; MMCA Cheongju: 59,163; total for MMCA: 828,855); GOMA and QAG (total for both: 601,061); Scottish National Gallery (Scottish National Gallery of Mod Art: 148,204; Scottish National Portrait Gallery: 85,838; total for National Galleries of Scotland: 538,602); Getty Heart (Getty Villa: 81,140; total for Getty: 348,175); Upper Dais (Lower Dais: 38,260; Belvedere 21: 33,183; total for Galerie Belvedere: 343,064).

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Source: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/03/30/visitor-figures-2020-top-100-art-museums-revealed-as-attendance-drops-by-77percent-worldwide

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