Is The Floor Safe For A Treadmill

popular Is it synonymous with success? Art

I leave a comprehensive note published in The Cultural, giving us a vision of where strategies are museums for bring more visitors every year. Personally, I was surprised that Queen Sofia has today (official data 2010) to 15% fewer visits to the Museo del Prado and the Museo Thyssen instead take 70% less. Greetings!

six directors English museums reflect on the role of museums today
That museum has good ratings is an essential part of its function, although to what extent determine the numbers? Is it popular as synonymous with success? How to maintain a good level of public under budget? Should museums give explanations have few visitors? How loyal? Think in terms of audience makes us less creative? Is the concept of the ideal audience for public speaking? Six English curators respond to all these questions. Miguel Zugaza (Museo del Prado), Guillermo Solana (Museo Thyssen), Manuel Borja-Villel (Museo Reina Sofía), Mari Bartholomew (MACBA), Daniel Castillejo (Artium) and Iñaki Martínez (MARCO) reflect on the role of the public regarding the museum. More than a computation on paper.

"There," says Daniel Castillejo, director since October 2008 Art Center and Museum Artium, Vitoria-two models of museums museums museums aesthetic and ethical. Both are legitimate and perhaps necessary, but you have to choose, by conviction or necessity "· He says thinking about this complex equation of audiences and museums, which have already in mind. "I think it's easy and uncreative to a museum with a huge audience. Just a matter of making the essential objective spectacular architecture, make a program according to the tastes of the mass audience, and money, big money. The creative is almost impossible and a museum with a large audience, with a decent building, a program that aims at training reflective and critical of the visitor and poor budgets, "he adds.

He says knowingly, Artium although the budget for 2011, EUR 5,050,000, it is not the lowest in the country. It is even 0.8% was higher than last year, when the institutional contributions that finance much of the Basque museum (the Provincial Council of Alava, Basque Government, Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Ministry of Culture) put the scissors by 9%. The remaining budget, more than 1,300,000 euros, and is considered self-financing comes from private sponsors, the rental of space, the profits of the restaurant, shop and box office revenue, although they only account for 1.5% . Free from opening, Artium opted last winter, collect entry 6 euros, despite all kinds of facilities to the public, such as annual bonuses to 10 euros or fee-you decide "(if you pay and how much so, in principle, free admission) for students, unemployed , pensioners and children under 14. For now, the plan meets Artium planned figures: "It would be wrong to say that the audience does not condition a museum. There is always a minimum that must be taken into account. In our case, the viability plan spoke of 90,000 visitors and are currently just over 100,000. However, I must say that there is a general fashion installed in the museum's social perception resulting spectacular popularity, but really these are few and have a different model to that of the vast majority of museums. "

As Artium, not the work of MARCO Vigo is measured in terms of profitability, "No one can speak of economic efficiency in relation to a museum, but other more difficult to quantify results," explains the director, Iñaki Martínez Antelo. The same difficulty is to work with the budget this year, 1,542,000 euros. Moreover, if the contributions that fund the Board of Trustees (City of Vigo, Novacaixagalicia, Xunta de Galicia, Pontevedra Provincial Council and the Ministry of Culture) have outstanding payments since 2009. "We understand cuts budget and assume the museum have to adapt to these times, but the commitments are fulfilled. We currently have an approved budget for 2011 that may not be able to run. It is unfortunate that a cultural as MARCO poyecto not get to be above Differents between parties, "says director Galician proud to lead a center with free entry, which says give" more freedom in scheduling. "

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More To maintain a good level of audience with such a small budget have always relied on the co-production, to seek funding or sponsorship, as the last of his projects, Hotel MARCO RVR Michael Lin and architects, for which many companies have given their products, COCO-MAT mattress to Illy coffees. "There are projects to other more friendly requiring little effort by the viewer, not much more to go see a movie in the original. There are many ways of bringing contemporary art to the public and vice versa, but we need a starting interest by the viewer, "he adds. Since opening in November 2002, "the public has grown steadily, which does not prevent the pressure of the audience is always there. In trying to reconcile FRAMEWORK attention to a more specialized audience who knows what comes over, with occasional visitors or people passing through the center by accident. We have a diversified program with two or three simultaneous exhibitions, in addition to courses, concerts and other activities. The important thing is to develop a coherent program with a sense of continuity, assessing available resources, the interest that may arise and to help generate debate and opinion, "the director of the MARCO.

Supply and demand
Martínez Antelo's views by stating "how late and excessively subsidized culture has come to our country" are quick to generate, well, debate. Bartomeu Marí, director the MACBA in Barcelona since 2008 took the floor: "In the United States and in major European museums do certain projects based on the income they can generate, both inputs and external sponsorship. At best, the most successful exhibition 'pay' the most specialized. In the worst case, only produces what attracts the masses. This is called a liberal economy based on supply and demand. In all cases, what sense does it subsidize the already successful and is funded by himself? "

With a budget of 11,600,680 euros for the 2011, the MACBA is financed by 83% due to a consortium owned by three government (Generalitat, Barcelona City Council and the Ministry of Culture) and 17% self-financing. Ticket sales reached 9.5%. For its part, the MACBA Foundation involves civil society (employers and individuals) through grants that allow buying works of art for the collection that, in the last two years has been the most visited exhibition in the museum.

At MACBA, Marí added, "there is no audience, but a heterogeneous mix of groups with very different motivations and interests to our activities. We are concerned about how we communicate with our users, but also how they communicate us. Our challenge is to convert this "conversation" in a normal, constant and sporadic and not something forced. " The Department of Communication and Marketing, the Catalan museum spends about 563,000 euros this year (excluding salaries) to disseminate the most open campaign audiences. "The idea of \u200b\u200bCome to the MACBA," says its director, is that the museum's many museums where they spend many things at once and where each user can build the visit for you. When a new visitor leaves the MACBA with the feeling of having satisfied their initial curiosity begins the long road looking for us: loyalty. "

The most
museum Miguel Zugaza, director of the Prado Museum, which attracts more public, is clear on its strategy to achieve this: "The very activity of the museum is the best marketing to convene the public interest. Intellectual and emotional satisfaction is the best form of loyalty. Do not be just an idea of \u200b\u200bthe public. You have to know, know what your expectations for the museum. The museum must be prepared to receive visitors from different backgrounds and training. A child and an adult. For an amateur and an expert. " Speaking of figures, for 2011 has a budget of 43,873,380 euros. Only in 2010, revenue from ticket sales was 10,163,353 euros. Passion by Renoir, was the highest grossing show of 2010 with 369,527 visits. Public figures are increasing since 2006 but "can not measure the success of a museum visitor numbers may even be grounds for legitimate criticism given to this tyranny," he recalls Zugaza. "El Museo del Prado is almost bicentennial but society has begun to haunt him regularly in recent decades. 'It is never late if that is good. " Museums have had to adapt to assume that interest. Those institutions that have been created not by demand but by other social cultural and political strategies now have your test. Without an audience, a museum can not meet half its core mission. "

Uncomfortable with the term "audience" Zugaza said that constant worry about the calculations of visits is more of the media in museums. The same view is Guillermo Solana, director of the Thyssen Museum in Madrid: "We have never received a reprimand in terms of numbers of visitors. What is popular is not the only yardstick of success. What works for the public are very few things and always the same. Although the numbers of visits have improved, I am frustrated because every time we try to do something to get out of the predictable, the outcome of the public is disappointing. " Not a few critical exposure fell out with last winter, by Mario Testino: "I think automatically condemn a sign of provincialism. Testino's goal was to make a contemporary statement of professional photography. I like to do things that ever made to come an audience that is not the usual museum. The Thyssen have diversified the public. We do not care much to get great records, but cover many different audiences, "said Solana.

have this 2011, 17,000,000 euro budget to do so, a million more than last year, when Monet and Abstraction won the ranking of the most visited 176,460 users. Of his project this year, a retrospective of Antonio López next June, the director of the Thyssen admits that "it is not intended to make public, although it has been shown that most have pursued since coming to the museum." In this regard vicious comparisons, the director diagnoses the problem: "Popularity and quality are neither friends nor enemies. That is a prejudice, "he adds.


For a large minority in 2008 Since Manuel Borja-Villel arrived at the Reina Sofía, the public has increased from 1,570,390 (in 2007) to 2,313,532 (in 2010). "In the Reina Sofia," says the director rather than a large majority of public There are a multitude of minorities. Beyond the people who come to see Guernica, the number of visitors has increased. We are doing studies of groups and we see very different people coming and returning. We are interested in public but not as loyal consumers, but as users. The new presentation of the Collection and the multiplicity of exposures has contributed greatly to it. It is the great challenge of the museum. In this regard the numbers give us reason. " The influx was seen in ticket revenue, in 2010, was 2,347,874 euros. We'll see what they give to it the EUR 49,630,220 is the budget the museum 2011. Its director has a clear goal: "The important thing is that There is another way to understand the term "audience." What he proposes the Reina Sofia is the opposite, that the museum is seen as a public space. "