The Art Newspaper‘s annual survey of museum attendance figures shows four Japanese exhibitions crowning the 2009 list for average visitors per day. Regarding the blockbuster status of exhibitions featuring Japan’s historical treasures, the paper notes that not only the artistic but the spiritual dimension plays into the crowd-drawing power of these shows in Japan.
Topping the list for contemporary art exhibitions was Pipilotti Rist’s Pour Your Body Out at New Yorks’s Museum of Modern Art with 6,186 visits per day, and at the top of the annual museum attendance list for was the Louvre with 8.5 million visitors.
The top four exhibitions
1. The National Treasure ASHURA and Masterpieces from Kohfukuji (Tokyo National Museum) – 15,960/day
2. The 61st Annual Exhibition of Shoso-in Treasures (Nara National Museum) – 14,965/day
3. Treasures of the Imperial Collections – Splendor of Japanese Art (Tokyo National Museum) – 9,473/day
4. Les Révolutions de L’âge Classique: La Peinture Européenne du XVIIème Siècle Dans Les Collections du Musée du Louvre (The National Museum of Western Art) – 9,267/day
The Art Newspaper
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/attfig/attfig09.pdf