On the topic of attendance, here's a Denver Post article on the attendance at the Denver Art Museum post-Libeskind...
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Filling the Hamilton harder than expected
LIBESKIND'S VISION STILL HOLDS PROMISE
By Kyle MacMillan Denver Post Fine Arts Critic
Article Last Updated: 05/27/2007 12:09:51 AM MDT
Attendance lagged behind the vaunted first-year projection of 1 million visitors after the opening of the Denver Art Museum's unorthodox, Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Building.
There was a $2.5 million cut in the museum's original 2007 fiscal year budget of $25.5 million. Thirty employees took buyouts, and another eight were laid off - a 14 percent reduction overall in staff.
These facts lead to a thorny question: Have the setbacks since the $110 million expansion's much-touted opening in October given the museum a black eye at the very time it is trying to capitalize on its new building to boost its national and even international profile?
Marc Wilson, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., which is poised to open its own major addition by another acclaimed architect, Steven Holl, doesn't believe so.
"I don't think it's a black eye," he said. "It's nothing that's fatal. It's more in the category of 'silly boys.' It doesn't in any way diminish my feelings for Denver or my esteem for the institution."
Tyler Green, a Washington, D.C., writer and editor who oversees the Modern Art Notes blog on Artsjournal.com., agrees, although he acknowledges raised eyebrows over the cuts and the stated reasons behind them.
"I don't think art people around the world sit around going, 'Oh, Denver is only going to draw 800,000 people this year and not a million. That means Denver must be a boring, sleepy place.' I don't think people think that.
"If anything, Denver serves as a reminder that you can't just build a building and have people show up and continue to show up, that building a museum is more than building a building."
Wilson sees the predictions of 1 million visitors and the accompanying claims of tourism increases as a simple case of boosterism. He said it was probably even necessary to secure passage of a $62.5 million bond issue that provided key
"That happens all across the country," he said. "That happens not only with art museums but other kinds of museums and attractions, particularly when you're trying to sell the project and its funding to voters or to city fathers or city mothers.
"So, the phenomenon of - I would call it exuberant predictions and estimations of its impact - is not unique to Denver at all."
He believes the staff cuts resulted from the museum buying too much into its own inflated expectations, as it enlarged its staff from about 200 before the Hamilton opening to more than 260.
"That means there was too much dependency on earned income," Wilson said. "Everybody wants to believe those rosy projections, because it means that the institution and its activities can be more self-sustaining than if you don't believe in them."
Such predictions might have been overexuberant, but other museum leaders say Denver's ability to draw an opening-year visitorship of 750,000 people - the now-revised estimate - is still quite impressive.
"Amazing" attendance
Dean Sobel, director of Denver's Clyfford Still Museum, calls it nothing short of extraordinary. The Milwaukee Art Museum, where Sobel once served as chief curator, drew 500,000 visitors during the first year after the 2001 opening of a $121 million addition by Santiago Calatrava.
"I just feel like that number is kind of amazing," Sobel said of Denver's potential attendance. "Milwaukee would never get a number close to that."
The projected visitorship of 750,000 also far exceeds the 2006 fiscal year attendance of 319,000 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. That period roughly encompasses the first year following the 2005 opening of a 177,000-square-foot expansion by Renzo Piano.
The Seattle Art Museum is projecting a first-year attendance of 550,000 for its downtown facility, which opened earlier this month. And the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has estimated opening-year turnout for its new building will be 650,000.
Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, director and chief curator of the Aspen Art Museum, said that whatever missteps might have occurred over the past seven months should not be allowed to overshadow Denver's overall success.
"I think when you aim really high, sometimes you stub your toe a little bit," Jacobson said. "But I don't think that should detract, really, from the incredible achievements that they have done. I mean 750,000 or 800,000 people - that's a lot of people."
Whatever differences of opinion might exist over the aftermath of the Hamilton Building's debut, everyone seems to agree that it's time to move on and focus on the future.
"Get over it, guys," Wilson said. "You have what you have. You've made great progress. So, let's stop crying over spilled milk."
