MOCA’s ‘Art in the Streets’ and LACMA’s ‘Tim Burton’ deliver big crowds
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Who said museums in L.A. couldn’t compete with the beauty of the beach? While museums here face major challenges in terms of general attendance, MOCA’s street-art spectacle ‘Art in the Streets’ (above) and LACMA’s film-art fusion ‘Tim Burton’ are, pretty much as museum folks had hoped, drawing big crowds downtown and to mid-Wilshire respectively.
‘Art in the Streets,’ which opened April 17 and runs until Aug. 8, has drawn 112,581 visitors through last Sunday, with a daily average of 2,046. General admission is $10, with Mondays free thanks to sponsorship by street art legend Banksy. The show is on track to beat the total attendance for its 2008 Murakami blockbuster (which had roughly 150,000 visitors), and museum spokeswoman Lyn Winter says the attendance to date ‘is among the highest ever in MOCA’s history, closely tracking the record attendance for the Andy Warhol retrospective at MOCA Grand Avenue in 2002.’
‘The exhibition is attracting young, and diverse audiences, many of which have never been to the museum before,’ she added, ‘reflecting the nature of the works on view and the influential ties to music, fashion, skate, design, film, animation, and the various communities represented.’
The exhibition of art by filmmaker TIm Burton, which runs May 29 to Oct. 31, has brought in 71,594 visitors (also through last Sunday), with a daily average of 2,386. A ticketed show not included with the museum’s general admission, it costs $20 per adult. The museum had no separately ticketed shows last summer that make for clean comparisons, but one point of reference is the ticketed ‘Dali in Film’ exhibition that opened in 2007, which brought an average of 1,525 daily for its first 30 days.
LACMA spokeswoman Miranda Carroll notes that it’s too soon to say for sure, but ‘based on current figures ‘Tim Burton’ could become one of our most highly attended ticketed exhibitions. We’ve been sold out every weekend since it opened, and it’s encouraging to see around campus a diverse audience of all ages --particularly teenagers and 20- to 30-year-olds -- many of them Burtonesque in their apparel and styling.’
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--Jori Finkel