No.0122
Art Shows in Tokyo, New York Draw Biggest Crowds, Survey Says

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A Tokyo exhibition featuring an 8th- century Buddhist shrine was the world's best attended museum show last year, according to a survey by Art Newspaper. A New York show of 16th-century Spanish artist El Greco was in second place.
Tokyo National Museum's ``Treasures of a Sacred Mountain,'' showing texts and artifacts from mountain temples, drew 7,638 visitors a day during its run from April 6 to May 16, the monthly paper said. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's ``El Greco'' attracted 6,897 entrants daily from Oct. 7, 2003, to Jan. 11, 2004, it said.
Better shows, and more media attention to art, have helped to expand the museum-going public. In 2004, 241 exhibitions attracted more than 1,000 visitors a day, a 21 percent increase from 2003, the paper said.
Museums worldwide are trying to make up for a fall in government funding and a rise in costs. Japan's state museums started to compete more aggressively after they were partly privatized in 2001, forcing them to pay their way through ticket sales and merchandising, the paper said.
Art Newspaper, based in London, has ranked museum shows around the world for the past 10 years. The latest survey was published in its March edition.
Museums in Tokyo and Paris have made the most progress in staging exhibitions that draw the crowds, the survey shows. London and New York have had fewer blockbusters in the past two years, it said.
Tokyo had seven shows on 2004's top 100 best attended exhibitions, up from two in 2002, the paper said. Paris had 10 shows on the top 100 list, compared with four in 2002. Last year, eight London shows made the top 100 list, a fall from 12 exhibitions two years earlier. New York, the biggest producer of crowd-pleasing shows, had 17 of 2004's 100 best-attended exhibitions, down from 24 in 2002.
MoMa in Berlin
New York's Museum of Modern Art reopened in a renovated home in November. The third best-attended show last year, with 6,568 daily visitors, was MoMa's collection at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. Running from Feb. 20 to Sept. 19, it drew a total of 1.2 million visitors, the paper said.
For most museums, the most popular shows were of impressionist and modern art. Madrid's Museo del Prado exhibited works by French impressionist Edouard Manet; it was last year's fourth best-attended show in the world. In fifth place was a show of Paul Gauguin's Tahiti works at Paris's Grand Palais.
This year, ``Turner Whistler Monet'' is making the rounds of the national galleries. It's currently at London's Tate Britain after a Paris run.
Hopper Show
London's most successful show last year was the Tate Modern's ``Edward Hopper.'' The display of works by the U.S. painter drew 4,215 visitors a day, or a total of 429,909. The show placed 11th on the top 100 list, the paper said.
In contemporary art, Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum topped the list. ``Richter, Weiner, Whiteread,'' featuring works by Gerhard Richter, Lawrence Weiner and Rachel Whiteread, drew 4,212 daily visitors. Bilbao also had the second most successful contemporary show, a retrospective of pop artist James Rosenquist, which had 3,596 visitors a day.
Exhibitions of Old Master works fared less well. There was a big gap between the Met's ``El Greco,'' which drew a total of 574,381 visitors, and the No. 2 show, ``Peter Paul Rubens'' at Vienna's Albertina, which drew 231,000 visitors, or 2,817 a day. The Albertina had three of the 10 best-attended Old Master shows, including one on Rembrandt.
London's National Gallery also had an El Greco show, which drew 2,126 daily visitors.
Antiquities ranked about equal with contemporary art in popularity. Tokyo National Museum's ``Treasures of Chinese Art'' drew 4,997 visitors a day. At Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, ``Eternal Egypt,'' showing works from London's British Museum, had 3,465 visitors a day.
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