kinda mean NYT article on Bklyn Museum audience

pitu

Brooklyn Museum’s Populism Hasn’t Lured Crowds
http://nyti.ms/csYmfX

but it *has* lured a younger and more diverse audience!

buried at the end . . .

NYTimes wrote: Mr. Lehman says he takes pride in the fact that even though the Brooklyn Museum’s audience hasn’t grown, it has become younger and more diverse. A 2008 museum survey showed that roughly half of the attendees were first-time visitors. The average age was 35, a large portion of the visitors (40 percent) came from Brooklyn, and more than 40 percent identified themselves as people of color.

“Arnold doesn’t get enough credit for being a real pioneer in audience development,” said the city’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Kate D. Levin.

whynot_31

^^^ which may result in its long term survival.

(as compared to, say, Lincoln Center)

prospectus

The Times story seems tremendously weak to me. The writer is straining to make a failure story out of the Museum more or less breaking even.

I have a tremendous affection for the Museum, and that affection has grown a lot over the last few years. Now, when my parents come to town, the Museum is one of the places we visit.

Also, two of the most intellectually interesting shows I've seen in the last ten years -- "Sensation" and the recent "To Live Forever" show -- were at the Brooklyn Museum.

Now check out the financial information at the end of the story. The reporter seems to be spinning the numbers pretty hard. The writer says First Night is "losing money." But how much money? $50? $50,000? $500,000? The writer doesn't mention that First Night is sponsored by Target. The writer just says "losing money" and lets the reader think the Museum is throwing a huge dance party every month with no way to pay for any of it. The writer also says the endowment is down from 2007, letting the reader think that the Museum has been foolishly spending money on all these silly parties and pop-culture exhibits. The story only grudgingly admits that the endowment's fluctuations track the stock market.

I [heart] the Brooklyn Museum

prospectus

One more thing -- the writer mentions a half dozen times a single exhibit of "Star Wars" stuff at the Museum in 2002 -- that's the year before we invaded Iraq. I can see mentioning it once or twice, but a half dozen times? The writer seems to have a Jar Jar Binks obsession...

tyson

I love the Museum and wish it meant more to more people. I think the point of the article is that despite the parties and trying to be more accessible -- which are great things -- the museum is still empty so much of the time, which is a damn shame. Don't know how to improve the situation, but it seems that their programs with kids are a good start, in terms of getting people in the door at an early age. I wish they did more with young local artists. Brooklyn is full of them, and if they wanted to, they could be much more cutting edge (I don't think Star Wars is cutting edge, although I know you all are tired of that example). But maybe they don't want to think of themselves as a contemporary museum. Think about it - they could be an amazing laboratory with guest artists, installations, etc. They sure got the space.

whynot_31

it should not be Detroit.

It should not be in the business of telling people they want fine art (big cars) when they do not.

....it should evolve

salix

The Brooklyn Museum has the space because a great deal of the museum's holdings are now in storage to make space for trendier events. As a result, where do you take kids to see a fabulous Native American collection now? Manhattan. Why is the Asian community in Brooklyn not involved in the wonderful Asian collection? They also have an excellent Islamic art collection. Aren't these communities part of Brooklyn too? How does a museum
"evolve"? By selling off all the old stuff?

whynot_31

I take no position on selling art.

...I advocate figuring out what local people want, and then providing it to them.

...there might be ways to get all of ethnicities you describe into the museum, but we might not be a fine art sorta crowd.

Perhaps something between Disney and MOMA.

pitu

Speaking of audience building, the museum is screening the reality show Work of Art at Soda tonight.

tyson

Great points. Why can't the museum get more local people involved in the art and artifacts about their heritage? We sure got those communities right here. Meanwhile, people still feel like the museum is "not for them," which is a shame. The stuff they have is sure not all "fine" art, meaning stuff that makes your brain hurt looking at it and thinking about it.

whynot_31

evolution is frequently a slow process.

....but I would argue the place is slooooowly moving in the right direction.

friscopete

Received this today;

Arnold Lehman
Director

June 17, 2010

Dear Brooklyn Museum Member:

By now, many of you have seen the article about the Brooklyn Museum that appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday evening of this week. I wanted to take this opportunity to communicate with you directly, as valued members of the Brooklyn Museum family, about some of the issues that were highlighted in this article.

The mission of the Brooklyn Museum is to bridge the rich artistic heritage of world cultures, as embodied in its collections, and the unique experience of each visitor. Dedicated to the primacy of the visitor experience; committed to excellence and drawing on both new and traditional tools of communication, interpretation, and presentation; the Museum aims to serve our diverse publics as a dynamic, innovative, and welcoming center for learning though the visual arts.

This mission helps to define what we do every day and differentiates us from every other cultural organization in New York City and the nation. We are proud of the mission-driven exhibitions and programs for adults and for children that we continue to produce.

Special exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum are specifically designed to develop and extend the cultural and art historical themes of our vast and comprehensive collection and to represent the rich diversity of our home borough of Brooklyn. On any given day, you can experience everything from Renaissance painting to arts of the Islamic world to contemporary art to popular culture (in which we have a proud and decades-long tradition). And we have received wide acclaim, both popular and scholarly, for the many exhibitions that we have developed to share our collection with audiences in Brooklyn and across the country, including To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum and Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, both currently on multi-city tours of the United States. Each year fifty to sixty thousand schoolchildren and their teachers visit the Museum and use works on view to strengthen learning and inspire new creativity. Last but not least, by opening the Museum free-of-charge, to visitors of all ages, for exciting cultural programs, Target First Saturdays embodies our mission of public service and allows for a new type of visitor experience, one which I hope all of you have enjoyed.

Would we like to be able to share the rich and vibrant life of the Brooklyn Museum with more people? Yes. Are we constantly striving for new and different ways to engage our audience? Absolutely. Will all of this be done within the context of our mission? Without question.

This is your Museum, and none of this could be achieved without you. As you know, the past several years have been financially challenging for the Museum, as for so many others. Unfortunately, we did not have a $9 million operating surplus in 2008 as may have been implied in the Times article. Instead, we ran a small deficit which we were thankfully able to cover using our increasingly limited cash reserves. Your commitment makes it possible for us to continue to do what we do best, and for this we are immeasurably grateful.

We look forward to welcoming you to a number of exciting exhibitions and programs over the next several months. First up is Andy Warhol: The Last Decade which opens tonight to our Members. I hope you can celebrate this breathtaking exhibition with us and experience, once again, what the Brooklyn Museum adds to the cultural life of our community.

Thank you, again, for your friendship and support.

puply

Would the NYT write something similar about the Met? or MoMA? or any other well-connected, Manhattan-based institution?

The Brooklyn Museum is an easy target for the oh so uncommon righteousness of the paper.

Where is that righteousness when other, venerable, museums put large, pathetic plastic crap on their roofs and call it a revolutionary step? Oh, sorry, of course, that crap sells, sells for millions, and thus it is regarded as fantastic and very highbrow.

Yes, some questionable decisions have been made at the BM - that Bravo partnership stands out - but by large the museum is a decent, non-elitist fixed, open minded institution with a remarkable eclecticism to its credit. Too bad that the Brooklyn in its name still may inspire certain journalists to write easy bashing copy.

marknyc

I am so tired of the NYT coverage of our cultural jewels - undervalued, misunderstood, and typically dismissed.

That aside, one of my neighbors and her family were leaving the Museum and came within inches of colliding with a group of skateboarders. Apparently, they were not only unapologetic but verbally abused her when she protested their recklessness. A security guard watched the whole scene and did nothing.

One of my friends in Turner Towers told me the museum had given the up on the skateboarders and they hear them slamming down the plaza day and night. Skateboarders also practice on the Library plaza and the new Richard Meier building. I've always considered skateboarding as a rather benign sport but it's obviously dangerous in a public space.
Can't imagine this happening at MOMA or the Metropolitan Museum.

carnivore

pitu

Response in the NYT:

To the Editor:

First, please let me thank you for choosing the Brooklyn Museum as the focal point to create a high-level dialogue about some of the challenges confronting cultural institutions in general, and art museums in particular, in the 21st century. Remembering that we are in the 21st century, with all the changes that have been brought about in the last decade, is a particularly important issue and commitment for the Brooklyn Museum.

The article performed an exceptional balancing act in eliciting a wide range of viewpoints — from the very informed to a more macro view of the issues. I am grateful to all of those respondents who took the time to focus on many of these challenges as they relate to the Brooklyn Museum. Key among these responses — based upon the questions asked by The Times — was the role of attendance in judging success and the issue of the so-called populist approach that has been part of Brooklyn’s long-standing strategic (before we knew what strategic was) commitment to its community. The Museum’s current program is based upon both a very long and prominent history at the Museum of populist programming to engage every wave of immigration to Brooklyn from the beginning of the 20th century to the present — a truly amazing century-long commitment to new and underserved audiences — and the continuation of the highest standards for the exhibition of our extraordinary collection covering 5,000 years of art history — one of the greatest in the nation. As a major example of our commitment to our rich collection and to the role of today’s museum, our recent collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum in placing our collection of 25,000 costumes at the Met was completed after more than four years of intensive study supported by the Mellon Foundation and was the largest instance of collection sharing in American museum history. Brooklyn benefits, the Met benefits, and most importantly, the public benefits.

The commitment to best engage our Brooklyn community — 2.7 million strong — and the commitment to using our collection have worked together to create the most diverse and youngest audience of any general fine arts museum in the country. Our interest is in who is coming to the Brooklyn Museum — and embracing them — not in their numbers. We are looking ahead in this century, not backward to the early 20th.

Brooklyn, like other museums throughout the country — especially urban museums — is challenged by serious funding issues. However, where other museums might also be challenged by location, the Brooklyn Museum seizes upon our location as a great asset in ensuring that we remain relevant in the 21st century, which is perhaps the greatest challenge to almost every cultural institution anywhere. Being relevant involves risk-taking. As with all risks, some prove successful, others not. Looking at the overall record of our risk-taking, we believe that the successes far outnumber the failures. Whatever the scorecard, the Brooklyn Museum has never believed in playing it safe.

Indeed, Brooklyn is home to the greatest and most vibrant concentration of artists in the world, and we are profoundly aware of the Museum’s position and commitment to this community. I believe that our record of exhibitions, acquisitions, and new installations of contemporary art speak to this commitment. For this year and next, we are already planning exhibitions and projects that continue this commitment to Brooklyn artists — and to the larger Brooklyn community as well.

Every cultural institution has or should have a written mission, adopted procedurally by its board of trustees and committed to intellectually by everyone working either as a professional or a volunteer at that institution. Committed to risk-taking and embracing of change, all of us at the Brooklyn Museum follow both the words and the spirit of our mission statement, written at the beginning of the 21st century. Understanding our mission would perhaps help others outside the Museum to better grasp the path we proudly follow every day:

The mission of the Brooklyn Museum is to act as a bridge between the rich artistic heritage of world cultures, as embodied in its collections, and the unique experience of each visitor. Dedicated to the primacy of the visitor experience; committed to excellence in every aspect of its collections and programs; and drawing on both new and traditional tools of communication, interpretation and presentation, the Museum aims to serve its diverse publics as a dynamic, innovative and welcoming center for learning through the visual arts.

Thank you.

Arnold Lehman

The writer is the director of the Brooklyn Museum.