Hey a positive story!
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/07/19/attendance_soaring_at_ica_despite_economy/
Big draw
A new building and high-profile shows have attendance soaring at ICA despite economy
Last summer, Helen Loomis was meeting friends for lunch at Anthony?s Pier 4 when the neighboring Institute of Contemporary Art caught her eye. The retired Boston schoolteacher stared at the glass exterior, its 80-foot cantilever stretching toward the water.
She told a friend she would love to visit Boston?s newest museum. Don?t bother, the woman snickered. The art?s not worth seeing. Loomis recounted that story on a recent afternoon from inside the ICA?s fourth-floor galleries. It took a year, but her first visit had not disappointed. She loved Shepard Fairey?s famous ?Hope?? poster of President Obama and Cornelia Parker?s mystical ode to a burning building, ?Hanging Fire.??
?I?ve gone to see contemporary art before, and I?ll end up staring at pieces and not getting it,?? said Loomis, 61. ?But I loved the ICA. I?d definitely go again.??
At a time when cultural organizations struggle to hold onto their audiences, the ICA is Boston?s greatest success story. Since opening in December 2006, attendance has boomed, making it the second most visited museum in the region. And a string of recent high-profile shows has done more than create foot traffic. The shows have changed the way Bostonians, traditionally more attuned to Sargent and Monet, look at contemporary art.
?Maybe it just took that landmark building to make people wake up,?? said Susan Stoops, curator of contemporary art at Worcester Art Museum.
No show has had more impact than the current 250-plus-piece exhibition of work by the controversial street artist Fairey. Just last month, attendance passed 105,000, making it the most popular show in the ICA?s 73-year history. That came on the heels of well-received exhibitions featuring Bombay-born sculptor Anish Kapoor and Tara Donovan, who crafts objects out of Scotch tape, plastic buttons, and pins.
?Don?t get me wrong, I love the Museum of Fine Arts, but if you go there, you won?t see any graffiti,?? Sudbury?s Evan Berkowitz, 13, said after walking through the Fairey exhibition. ?I like the ICA. It?s a nice break.??
How has the ICA done it? By reaching out to the mainstream without alienating art world insiders. Chief Curator Nicholas Baume said the museum remains committed to giving attention to deserving artists who make important works. But he says he is also conscious of the need to build a new audience.
?Kapoor, Donovan, and Fairey are artists you don?t need to have a lot of experience going to museums and have an art history degree to really engage with and respond to,?? he said.
Even some local gallery owners, critics, and curators who criticized the shows held just after the building?s opening in December 2006 have come around. They appreciated the work of Kapoor, known for his mirrored, bean-shaped installation, ?Cloud Gate,?? in Chicago?s Millennium Park. They also praised the solo exhibition featuring Donovan. In a fortuitous twist, two weeks before the show opened, Donovan was awarded a MacArthur genius grant.
?They?ve really hit their stride,?? said Nick Capasso, senior curator at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.
Reviews of the Fairey show have been mixed, with some questioning whether his work, which often appropriates existing images, altering them and adding messages and color, is really art. (In his review, Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight called Fairey a ?talented designer?? who ?possesses a limited pictorial vocabulary, while the grandest curatorial claims made for the nearly 250 examples in the galleries are unsupportable.??)
Still, others were impressed by Fairey?s work after being moved by the previous exhibitions.
?I thought the Anish Kapoor was luscious,?? added Gallery NAGA director Arthur Dion. ?Tara Donovan was stunning. The Shepard was the real surprise for me. I had dismissed the show before going, and I was really startled and impressed.??
The ICA?s former home in an old police substation in the Back Bay did have its loyalists. But with its cramped space and hours, the museum?s reach was limited. In a way, it was more an insider?s art club than a major institution. Some years, as few as 12,000 people walked through the doors.
?I remember a Cindy Sherman [photography] exhibition in the old ICA,?? Hingham?s Ann Fickenwirth said while visiting the new ICA recently. ?It was so crowded and more disturbing in a way. Here, you have the white walls you?re surrounding by and the natural beauty of the waterfront.??
The new ICA opened with a splash in 2006, praised for its daring design by New York architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro but immediately criticized for its first exhibition. ?Super Vision?? was a kind of greatest hits survey of such name artists as Jeff Koons and Yoko Ono.
Not everyone is convinced of the ICA?s programming direction. Alex Jacobson, a Boston-based writer and artist, has grumbled about the big-name shows.
?Anish Kapoor is so mundane,?? he said. ?Tara Donovan is repetitious, and they lit her work terribly. And then you come to the Shepard Fairey. It?s this repetition of artists people can associate with, things the lay viewer can say, ?Yeah, I get it.? But that kind of work is often simplistic and missing the point of a lot of contemporary art.??
Tara Oremus, 33, didn?t complain. She went to ?Super Vision?? and was impressed not only by the art, but by the new building. Earlier this month, Oremus, who lives in the South End, returned to the ICA with a group of local teens participating in Youth Design, a program that gives high-schoolers internships in the design world. Oremus, director of operations for Youth Design, said the ICA has the ability to change the way people perceive contemporary art and art museums.
?I thought the Fairey show would be a perfect inspiration for the kids. It?s great for them to see street art recognized in such a way.??Continued...
Malvin Diaz, 17, a participant in Youth Design, agreed.
?I was expecting sculptures and Roman pictures, serious stuff,?? he said.
Instead, he and a few friends studied a Fairey poster that blended the images of Argentine rebel leader Che Guevara with the late wrestler Andre the Giant.
The ICA did not anticipate the record-setting success for Fairey. The museum committed to the show well before Fairey?s profile grew, thanks to the ?Hope?? campaign. The exhibition got more attention when Boston police arrested Fairey, on his way to the opening night party, and charged him with vandalism for plastering his posters throughout the city. By the exhibition?s close on Aug. 16, the ICA anticipates 130,000 people will have attended the show.
The Fairey exhibition and other success have helped the ICA shift the power structure in Boston?s cultural landscape. The museum?s attendance, at 267,733 in the most recent year, is higher than that at Salem?s Peabody Essex Museum (184,102), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (183,000), and the DeCordova (101,627). The MFA drew 960,452 that year. Ten years ago, the ICA ranked last among this group.
Beyond ticket revenue - which accounts for 10 percent of the museum?s $10.2 million budget - popular shows like the Fairey and Kapoor (65,265) exhibitions can lead to gains throughout the museum.
?Keep in mind, increased attendance means increased membership,?? said Capasso of the DeCordova. ?And when you do great shows that get a lot of attention, it stimulates your ability to raise funds.??
The ICA hasn?t been completely immune from the economic downturn. It has shrunk its budget from $11.4 million to $10.2 million for the fiscal year that ended in June.
But it has done that by extending the Fairey show from a May to August closing, cutting down on mailings, and enacting a hiring and salary freeze. The MFA, Gardner, and Boston Symphony Orchestra have had to lay off staff.
Still, the museum?s third year attendance - up from about 200,000 last year - has helped balance the budget. Increased traffic affects its store, which saw its revenue increase from $838,000 to $1.3 million.
?That money - I?m calling it Fairey dust,?? said ICA director Jill Medvedow.
Geoff Edgers can be reached at
gedgers@globe.com.
? Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.