Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Research

Detroit Institute’s Facebook Experiment: The Results Are In

How good a marketing tool is Facebook? That question was posed in my Feb. 29 post here about the Detroit Institute of Arts, which offered Facebook fans free admission during March.

Now we know, and the answer is pretty good. The DIA says that 3,335 visitors took advantage of the free offer — an average of almost 160 people for each of the 21 days (the institute is closed Mondays and Tuesdays) of that month.

Visitorship overall during the month was also higher, year-on-year, despite the fact that there was no blockbuster exhibition. To get a fair comparison, the DIA subtracted school groups, which were also higher this year, and came up with this apples-to-apples comparison.

In 2012, March had 13,421 visitors versus 9,626 visitors in the same month last year, for a net increase of 3,795.

“Essentially, this indicates that the Facebook free admission promotion resulted in no decrease in general admission revenue over last year,” wrote Christine Kloostra, the director of marketing, in an internal email shared with me.

When, on Feb. 24, the DIA announced the free admission to those who “like” it on Facebook, the museum had just over 97,000 such fans and was seeking to top 100,000. When I checked just now, it had 115,738.

The response to the museum by new visitors was good, judging by comments posted on the DIA’s wall, too:

“Today was a fantastic day at the DIA, thank you! It was my first time attending and there were so many wonderful pieces to see. My family and I will certainly be back soon!” ~Anna Calhoun, Mar. 12

“Just went yesterday and it blew me away. Definitely returning.” ~Mollie Nasser, Mar. 10

“THANKS!! Will be visiting for the first time next week!” ~Candice Perdan, Mar. 9

“Don’t you just love The DIA for doing this!!!” ~Edie Lovejoy, Mar. 9.

“This is the most awesomest things the DIA has done in a long time. When I go, I’m gonna spend extra $$$ at the cafe and gift shop!!” ~Rob Kaplovitz, Mar. 1

Indeed, don’t you love it — especially the last sentiment? You can read more comments here.

And whoever at DIA thought of this should be given a treat, perhaps a drink at a place like John Sloan’s McSorley’s Bar, above, which is in the DIA’s collection.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the DIA

The Ghent Altarpiece: Ready For Its Close Up

Of all the art works in the world, the Ghent altarpiece is one of the most admired — and now it will perhaps be one of the most studied, certainly the most studied from afar.

The Getty Foundation on Friday announced that it was making available a website that will allow deep technical study of the 1432 work by Hubert and Jan can Eyck. Viewers can zoom in and look at all of the oak panels in macrophotography, infrared macrophotograpy, infrared reflectography and x-radiography.

Here’s what the Getty did: “Each centimeter of the altarpiece was scrutinized and professionally photographed at extremely high resolution in both regular and infrared light. The photographs were then digitally “stitched” together to create highly detailed images which allow for study of the painting at unprecedented microscopic levels. The website itself contains 100 billion pixels.”

Those high-definition digital images are now available to all on a site called Closer to van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece. You can zoom in and you can dispay different any two images from the panels side by side. I pasted an example at the bottom of this post, an image using digital macrophotographs (left) and digital infrared reflectograms (right).

The site takes some getting used to: it sometimes takes a little time to load the images. When I played with it today, though, I was able to go behind the picture, so to speak. The image upper right is the virgin’s crown in infrared macrophotography, while the image at left here, is an infrared reflectography image of part of the singing angels’ panel.

While I enjoyed my exploration, I think the site will be most useful to scholars, which is a good thing.  (There’s a good ‘how to use this site’ section.)

 The photography was made possible by a dismantling of the altarpiece for emergency conservation work. But it will also inform the comprehensive cleaning/restoration that begins next September.

The Getty paid for much of the website, but the whole project is a collaboration with the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Lukasweb, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Last July, when the Getty’s study was underway, the Los Angeles Times had this to say by way of background.

The MacArthur Foundation, The Moth And The Arts

Last fall, when the National Endowment for the Arts announced the creation of an Interagengy Task Force on the Arts and Human Development, I didn’t pay too much attention. I should have. And what prompted me to reconsider was today’s announcement that, of all the creative activities being offered by all the creative arts institutions and organizations in the world, the MacArthur Foundation chose to give the one arts-related award among its 2012 grants for Creative and Effective Institutions, of 15 awards, to The Moth. $750,000 because it’s “dedicated to the art of storytelling to document our common humanity.”

I have nothing against The Moth; I’ve been to a few of its programs and I was entertained, maybe moved (one was clear and only comedy, though…at least I didn’t get meaningful message). But I find it hard to believe that it’s the most or best creative or effective arts institution… At least in terms of impact on people. Go here to see a couple of the events that impressed the MacArthur jurors, but the group’s own website provides a more well-rounded look that leaves me underwhelmed.

A look at past winners shows no other arts-related groups.

The MacArthur awards are chosen from nominations — organizations do not apply — and the nominators are secret (many years ago, I was one, for the “genius awards,” but my two candidates did not win). But I can’t help but believe that art museums (and other arts groups) are having more impact on people’s lives, especially the lives of children and youth, than story-telling evenings and podcasts. Clearly, the word is not getting out. I myself have only occasionally learned of and written about creative efforts at education — at MassMOCA, at the de Cordova Museum and at The Center for Childhood Creativity, for example. They may not be the best, but they are the ones I’d heard of at the time.

Which brings me back to the NEA task force, a group of 14 federal agencies and departments that aims “to encourage more and better research on how the arts help people reach their full potential at all stages of life.”  It was created because of research contained in a report called “The Arts and Human Development,” which stated that “In study after study, arts participation and arts education have been associated with improved cognitive, social, and behavioral outcomes in individuals across the lifespan: in early childhood, in adolescence and young adulthood, and in later years.”

It then says we have to share, coordinate and do better research. I agree. And, clearly, we have to get the word out about all the creative things arts institutions are doing that MacArthur nominators ought to know about. So the press release that landed in my email box this morning came at the right moment. In it, the NEA announces that the task force’s next webinar will be Wednesday, Feb. 29, from 2 to 3 p.m. EST. There’s more information here.

Talk begets other talk. Of course, participants can just listen too, but then they may find something to talk up and hope that nominators are in hearing distance.

 

 

 

Shocker News: Why Galleries Are So Empty

Today’s Telegraph contained startling news from the U.K. that makes me wonder about the U.S.

…Four in 10 children have never seen the inside of an art gallery, while 17 per cent haven’t visited a museum with their parents.

…a quarter of children haven’t been to the theatre, while six in 10 have never heard or been to a classical music concert. One in 10 kids hasn’t even left their home town to visit other cultural sites in the UK.

And half of parents admit they make little effort to educate their children on culture or history, relying on schools to do so.

The story did not include a margin of error, and admittedly was based on a survey of only 2,000 parents of five to 12 year-olds throughout the UK. But I have no reason to believe that numbers would be better in the U.S. Please comment if you can shed light on this.

Perhaps the most worrisome statement in the article was this: “The poll found today’s children are more likely to think of ‘culture’ as modern technology such as computer games, the rise of the digital age and fast food restaurants.”

That is backed up by the way “culture” is written about in newspapers and magazines. Video games, web phenonmena, and restaurants are all grouped together in Style or Culture sections. That may, though, be a mixed blessing — a true Culture section might simply be ignored. Again quoting the Telegraph,

When questioned on why they make no effort to make their children more ‘cultured’ and knowledgeable about past history, a fifth of parents claim their offspring simply wouldn’t be interested.