Here's a very interesting eye opener...

Here is the list of the visitor numbers for museum shows around the world. It is compiled annually by The Art Newspaper.

What is interesting to me about this list, is the fact that the highest attended show in Washington, DC (highest as defined by average daily attendance, as some shows run longer than others, and thus total attendance is different) was the spectacular retrospective at the Hirshhorn of German painter Gerhardt Richter! (read my review of it here). It averaged around 2,000 visitors a day.

Here are the only Washington, DC museum shows to make the 2004 list:

Gerhardt Richter at Hirshhorn - 158,625 visitors (1,958 daily)
Jean-Antoine Houdon at National Gallery - 243,059 (1,914 daily)
Jacob Kainen's Collection/Trompe l'Oeil at National Gallery - 231,905 (1,645 daily)
Edouard Vuillard at National Gallery - 142, 191 (1,546 daily)
Frederick Remington at National Gallery - 124,145 (1,349 daily)

And lest we forget, all of these museums are free, and also the figures are generally moved one way or the other by the tourist tides to our city, which also influences most major cities around the world, except that our museums are free, and thus (I think) more likely to attract a family of tourists.

It also seems to me that the list is somewhat screwed up, as they list Jacob Kainen's An Artist's Artists: Jacob Kainen's Collection from Rembrandt to David Smith which ran at the NGA from 22 September 2002-9 February 2003 together with the Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe l'Oeil Painting which ran from 13 October 2002-2 March 2003.

At the top of the list was Leonardo's show at the Met in New York, which drew 6,863 visitors a day and a total of 401,004. Not a single show from the Tate Gallery in London made the 2003 list (their Matisse/Picasso show was one of the top ten in the world in 2002) and Matthew Barney's super hyped Guggenheim mess, although it made the list, got beaten by much less publicized events such as a show of Latin American artists at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

A Minneapolis group show beats Barney's hype machine!

Goes to show you that all the hype and money in the world, although it can certainly go a long way to get you there, it still can't guarantee top success - at least as defined by public attendance, and I bet that the Walker Art Center (which had several shows in the list) spent a tiny percentage of what the Guggenheim did in producing and setting up their show.