Memorial Day was last weekend, of course, but I want to catch up on a release that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston put out a few days ago: over that miserable three-day weekend, weatherwise, a record number of people visited the museum — in part because it was free and an opportunity to show solidarity in the wake of the Patriot’s Day Boston Marathon bombing. MFA staged a “Boston I Love” Community Weekend, which — while hardly a celebration — was an opportunity to commune with other Bostonians. It worked.
Of the 29,391 people who attended the event, 9,759 visited on Saturday, 10,373 on Sunday, and 9,259 on Monday. The Museum, which was open each day from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., welcomed an average of 1,400 people per hour—the most visitors per hour in nearly 50 years.
There were lines to get in — see the picture in the release — and while they were there, visitors contributed about $6,500 to The One Fund Boston.
As RCA readers know, the Metropolitan Museum has lent three paintings in support. Museum-goers joined in, with “several thousand visitors participat[ing] in the collage-making project “Boston I Love,†creating about a thousand pictures that illustrated the spirit of Boston. Works were hung near the glass wall of the Druker Family Pavilion Community Classroom in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art.”
Another outpouring came from people all over the world in the form of more than 1,700 flags made in tribute to the people of Boston. They were hung in the museum’s courtyard, which when it opened a few years back was criticized by some as being cold and off-putting. Chihuly’s Lime Green Icicle Tower helped, but from afar it seems as if it had never looked better than last weekend:
I love it when an art museum proves its worth as a place people want to go for an uplifting experience.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the MFA