It's news that would get any art museum director excited. An article in the Feb. 1 New York Times reported on a study from the London-based The Art Newspaper showing Americans leading the world in museum attendance for the 1997-98 exhibition season. For those members of the cultural elite who feel competitive with their European counterparts, it was a triumph of Yankee pride.
Granted, much of the focus was on recent blockbuster shows: Monet in the 20th Century drew 567,000 visitors to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and The Private Collection of Edgar Degas (which included works by Manet and Cézanne) drew 528,268 to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here in the Queen City, where current arts facilities and budgets cannot support similar blockbuster events, one wonders: Is Cincinnati part of this arts boom?
"I can't imagine 500,000 people passing through this museum in 47 days" says Jackie Reau, Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) Director of Marketing. "Where would they eat? Where would they park? We only have 250 parking spaces."
Reau says the CAM will focus on a limited number of "niche" programs emphasizing high artistic quality and broad appeal within current CAM constraints. CAM attendance has grown eight percent annually over the past five years (1993's renovation provided a boost at the gate), and 1998-99 attendance is projected at a healthy 250,000. The CAM has much to be excited about: Reality Under Siege: Sandy Skoglund enjoyed record attendance last July, and British Elegance: Decorative Arts from Burghley House attracted a healthy 43,000 visitors over 47 days (still well behind the CAM's top draw: 1982's The Treasures from the Tower of London, which drew 143,713 over 80 days).
Although Cincinnati is unlikely to host any forthcoming blockbuster shows, it can soon lay claim to a blockbuster building. New blueprints and schematics were unveiled Feb. 28 inside the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) gallery for the new CAC designed by London-based architect Zaha Hadid. Recent CAC attendance has been moderate at best: 44,000 in 1996; 45,102 in 1997 and 49,474 in 1998.
But CAC Director Charles Desmarais confidently anticipates a tremendous attendance boost when the museum relocates to Sixth and Walnut Streets downtown.
The CAC has already received extraordinary news coverage for its new building. Although its peer arts institutions (CAM, the Taft Museum, the Arts Consortium and area galleries) would benefit from getting their message out to the public more powerfully, no arts institution likes to disclose ad spending.
But think about it: Do you really know what's going on in Cincinnati's art museums? Collaborative ad buys with the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau help target "cultural tourist" from elsewhere, but what of the local audience?
Trends arrive slowly in Cincinnati. For many people, it's our proudest conservative attribute, this reluctance to jump on the latest craze. But a renewed interest in art museums is one trend even the stodgiest of Queen City fat cats could support. What's important is to determine just how Cincinnati's arts institutions share in the attendance growth being experienced elsewhere.
"We in the Museum profession joke that the perfect title for a blockbuster exhibition would be Treasures of the Lost Golden Impressionists Cats of Egypt," says Reau.
OK, maybe the answer doesn't lie with blockbuster shows. The CAC's blockbuster building can't be relied upon to change Cincinnati's arts community overnight. The far-from-easy answer may lie with blockbuster thinking: making the most of local resources to create progressive and stimulating art, and then taking the message to people beyond the arts community boundaries.
And when that happens, who needs Impressionist Cats?
