Revealed: UK's most visited museum
Plus: The Festival of Brexit slammed as 'waste of money'
Happy Friday.
Major props to the V&A who last night trolled everyone’s St Patrick’s Day plans by holding a glittering party to celebrate the opening of their Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear exhibition - although of course there were no shamrocks or oversized Guinness top hats in sight at the Gucci-hosted event. The actual Mark Ronson spun the tunes, and everyone was there, from Olly Alexander to Sam Smith, and that guy who does the trainspotting TikToks (who is of course the new face of Gucci and is now friends with Joe Jonas. What a world). You can go inside the event with Tatler here if you weren’t on the guestlist. I spent the night queuing for 40 minutes at the bar of an Irish pub in South London and saw two people get in a fight over a Red Bull. Questioning my life choices.
Now on to the news!
Maxwell
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This week’s top story
The Natural History Museum in London has been revealed as the most visited museum or gallery in the UK in 2021. In fact it was the most visited indoor attraction, full stop. The Museum’s visitor numbers were up 21% on they year before, to 1.5 million, which made it the fourth most visited attraction overall. The list was topped by Windsor Great Park, which drew 5.4m visitors – the first time the list was not topped by a London attraction. The British Museum was the second most-visited museum, followed by Tate Modern, who saw a 19% drop year-on-year. The Science Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich and National Museum of Scotland all saw significant rises.
Natural History Museum Director Doug Gurr said he “couldn’t be prouder of these phenomenal figures” and that “it is testament to the hard work and resilience of all our staff who ensured visitors had the same world-class welcome.”
Of course 2021 was not a usual year, and nearly all venues were forced to close for months due to the pandemic. The average number of closure days in England was 81. In London, it was 148. Overall, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) who release the figures, said total visits to all sites across the UK increased by 25% last year, but they are still down 57% on pre-pandemic levels. Bernard Donoghue, director of ALVA, says that overseas visitor numbers are not likely to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2024: “For many of our most iconic attractions, this means not getting back to financial resilience four or five years after having first closed their doors.” A reminder that the long-term financial affects of this pandemic are due to play out for a long time to come.
This week’s other stories
In other Natural History Museum news, they’ve announced that their iconic diplodocus cast Dippy is to go on long term loan to a partner venue. It comes after a successful 3 year nationwide tour of the dinosaur attracted 2 million visitors. Dippy will have one final showing at the South Kensington museum later this year, before heading out to a new-TBC-home. Venues interested in hosting Dippy have been invited to apply. Blooloop
It’s been revealed that the Royal Collection withdrew permission for objects to be displayed at the Kremlin Museums in Moscow. Permissions for the loans were scrapped in mid-February as more than 100,000 Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s borders. The collection was among a number of European institutions to pull out of the Moscow exhibition about duelling, forcing its postponement. The Guardian
Burkino Faso-born architect, Diébédo Francis Kéré, has become the first African to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize, the world’s most important architecture award. His 2017 Serpentine Pavilion in London was one of the most memorable of recent years. BBC News
The Festival of Brexit - ok, ok, Unboxed: Creativity in the UK - is a £120 million waste of public money and is set for failure, a committee of MPs has warned. In a scathing report the cross party Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee criticised the government's handling of the project, saying they had “no confidence that it can meet its ambitious targets.” The festival began this month. Did you notice? The Independent
A terrifying stabbing took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the weekend, where two employees were knifed by a visitor after he was denied entry. Security footage showed the suspect leaping over the reception desk and stabbing the workers — a man and a woman, both aged 24 — multiple times in the back, collarbone, and neck. Thankfully both are expected to survive. The suspect was arrested three days later in Philadelphia. His membership to the Museum had been revoked due to “disorderly conduct.” MoMA has immediately renewed a contract for paid security details with the New York Police Department (NYPD), which it had previously cancelled following the Black Lives Matter protests. Hyperallergic
The consequences of the pandemic are forcing the 9/11 Tribute Museum in Lower Manhattan - the smaller of two museums built in response to the tragic events of that day - to close for good. The museum was designed to serve the survivor community, but admissions had reduced by 83% due to the decrease in international tourists to NYC. Wall Street Journal
And finally
Did you manage to get Kusama tickets? Tate Modern released a new batch just over 24 hours ago - and there are still 40,000 people in the online queue. Pray for them.
Who wouldn’t want lunch and cigarettes in France with David Hockney? Waldemar Januszczak got just that, as he spoke to the artist for the Sunday Times ahead of a new show opening in Cambridge.
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