Merry museum Christmas
Museum leaders look back on 2021
Hello for one final time in 2021!
I cannot believe the year is almost over. It’s been the most difficult and discombobulating year since, er, the year before. But we’ve made it.
This is the 60th edition of this newsletter this year. 60th! I’ve crunched some numbers and found that maxwell museums has had nearly 60,000 views over the past 12 months. Mind-blowing. And because good things come in threes, last Friday’s edition became my most-read single edition EVER. I cannot believe it. It’s all thanks to you - yes YOU - for reading and supporting throughout the year. Whether you’ve read all 60, you’re a total newbie, or you’re somewhere in-between, I want to say: THANK YOU. You are why I keep on writing.
Have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, wherever you are. See you in 2022.
Maxwell
Merry Christmas! Want to keep up-to-date with all the news in museums, galleries and art in 2022? Then subscribe to this newsletter! (It’s free!)
barometer
What’s heating up and cooling down in the world of museums, art and galleries this week:
going up
Big congrats go to the Sacramento History Museum in California as they have just surpassed the incredible milestone of 2 MILLION followers TikTok. It likely makes them the most followed museum in the world on the platform. They’ve been rewarded for this achievement with a $25,000 donation from TikTok which the Museum is putting towards educational activities. Not bad for a museum unknown outside of er, Sacramento.
going down
Museum opening hours are taking a dive in the UK thanks to the ongoing Omicron wave of coivd. Many are finding it difficult to open with so many staff starting to self-isolate, and so are closing all together. London’s Wellcome Collection was the first major institution to mothball (as reported in Friday’s newsletter) but they’ve now been joined by three national museums - the Natural History Museum, the National Army Museum, and Sir John Soane’s Museum - as well as places like the Museum of the Home and the Garden Museum. Museum lovers in the Netherlands and Denmark have it worse though, as museums there are totally shut thanks to strict lockdowns. 2020 deja vu I hear you say?
curated
My curated list of what’s new to see, do, watch, read and more, from across the globe.
NEW ONLINE EXHIBITION
Tracey Emin, Video Works, 1995—2017 at Xavier Hufkens
With fifteen titles spanning a period of three decades, this is the first exhibition to survey Emin’s video art. Though they’ve received less visibility than Emin’s installation and painting, these films are a vital component of her work and can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home. Online now. Visit xavierhufkens.com
NEW PODCAST EPISODE
Talk Art with Jeff Koons, presented with BMW
The popular podcast series presented by actor Russell Tovey and gallerist Robert Diament has a Christmas special where they chat to the superstar artist Jeff Koons. Recorded from the Pace Gallery in New York, they discuss Koon’s passion for art, his student years in Chicago and his first job at the Museum of Modern Art. The perfect audio escape if Christmas with the family gets a bit *much*. Listen here
NEW(ISH) BOOK
Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2022
We can but hope that travel will come roaring back to life in 2022 (at some point). So get a head start with Lonely Planet’s 17th annual collection of the world’s hottest destinations and must-have travel experiences for the year ahead. The UK features in the best regions list with Kent’s Downs and Heritage Coast, ranked in fourth place, while the number-one city for 2022 is Auckland, New Zealand. If you don’t find this in your stocking then give yourself a Boxing Day treat. Buy here
interview
What a year 2021 has been. I hope this newsletter has brought you some joy with a my regular interviews. From former UK culture secretary Lord Vaizey, to artist Julian Opie, with the Directors of the Hepworth Wakefield, Wallace Collection and the FIFA Museum in between, it’s been a bumper year for chatting to movers and shakers in these emails.
I’ve got plenty more planned for 2022, but to make the year go out with a bang, I’ve asked the leaders of three major museums to reflect on the past 12 months for their organisations.
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Tim Reeve, Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Describe the V&A's 2021 in three words. INSPIRING. FASCINATING (but) FRUSTRATING
What was the highlight of the year? We have managed to achieve an extraordinary amount considering the ongoing disruption and uncertainty, and shown remarkable resilience and adaptability. But if I had to choose one highlight, it would be ‘topping out’ at our new V&A East Museum in the Olympic Park this December. A wonderful Christmas present.
What was the biggest challenge and why? The ongoing uncertainty and disruption – the opening and closing, the starting and stopping – so many great projects and initiatives being driven forward with such imagination and ingenuity, but with momentum so difficult to maintain.
Sara Wajid MBE and Zak Mensah, co-CEOs of Birmingham Museums Trust
Describe Birmingham Museum’s 2021 in three words. Intensive. Atypical. Galvanising
What was your biggest priority during this past year, and in your first year as joint CEOs? Our priority has been to make change happen at a time when the tension between what is urgent and what is important has never been greater. Our ambition is for Birmingham Museums to become more useful to more people and everyone has recognised that change is necessary in order to achieve that.
Has being a co-CEO been easier or more difficult because of the pandemic and why? It’s been easier because this upending of society has meant we are all focussed on making our public cultural services really deliver for all of us. Leadership is about drawing teams together to address the big fundamental challenges and we’ve been very well supported by staff, trustees and collaborators and by each other.
Christopher Woodward, Director of the Garden Museum in London
Describe the Garden Museum's 2021 in three words: Flowers. Swimming. Food.
What was the Museum's biggest achievement this year? Our exhibition on the influential floral designer Constance Spry was a big hit, both with in person visitors and online. But it was quite a risk: how do you summon up the spirit of a florist who died half a century ago?
What will the legacy of this second pandemic year be for the Garden Museum?While loss came very close we received £524,669 in sponsorship for a swim I did from Newlyn to Tresco, to save the Museum, and to keep together a talented team of staff. That has emboldened us to be more ambitious in the future.
And finally
“It was the most hated building ever” said architect Richard Rogers on the art gallery that launched his career: Paris’ Centre Pompidou. To mark his sad death this week, the Telegraph looked back on how the iconic ‘inside out’ building initially horrified the world.
Merry Christmas! Want to keep up-to-date with all the news in museums, galleries and art in 2022? Then subscribe to this newsletter! (It’s free!)