The Art Newspaper: Most Visited Museums and Exhibitions in 2016

The Art Newspaper has recently published its annual rankings of the most visited museums and exhibitions in the world last year. Several categories are covered, including most popular museums and exhibitions in the world, as well as for several major cities an in specific genres, including Asian art.

Most visited museums

As in 2015, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, topped the list of most visited museums in the world, with over 7.4 million visitors (down from 8.6 million one year earlier). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the British Museum, London, come next. The ten most visited museums in the world in 2016 were as follows:

• Musée du Louvre, Paris (7.4 million visitors)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (7.0 m)
• British Museum, London (6.4 m)
• National Gallery, London (6.3 m)
• Vatican Museums, Vatican City (6.1 m)
• Tate Modern, London (5.8 m)
• National Palace Museum, Taipei (4.7 m)
• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (4.3 m)
• State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (4.1 m)
• Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (3.6 m)

Most popular exhibitions

Exhibitions presenting the work of French artists and a range of free exhibitions organised by the Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil in Rio de Janeiro top the list of the most-visited exhibitions in 2016. The top ten exhibitions last year were as follows:

• "Post-Impressionist Masterpieces", Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (9700 visitors per day; free entrance)
• "Patricia Piccinini: Consciousness", Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (8340; free entrance)
• "Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum: the Exhibition", Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (8288; free entrance)
• "Artist's Choice: Jérôme Bel", Museum of Modern Art, New York (6777)
• "Renoir: Masterpieces", National Art Center Tokyo (6594)
• "Frida Kahlo: Surrealist Women in Mexico", Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo (6525)
• "Manux x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Tech", Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (6073)
• "Ivan Aivazovsky: for the 200th Anniversary", State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (6014)
• "Picasso Sculpture", Museum of Modern Art, New York (5872)
• "Hieronymus Bosch: Visions of Genius", Noordbrabants Museum den Bosch (5710)

The Art Newspaper also reports that the world's most visited work of art in 2016 was Christo's Floating Piers on Lake Iseo, Italy, the artist's first outdoor installation since 2015. In total, 1.2 million people, amounting to around 75,000 per day, experienced the site-specific installation over 16 days.

Most popular exhibitions of Asian art

Of particular interest to ASEMUS readers is the list of most-visited exhibitions of Asian art in 2016, topped by a presentation of China's Terracotta Army and including several successful events in Japanese and Korean museums, presenting art from several Asian countries:

• "The Terracotta Army of China's First Emperor", Tokyo National Museum (5243 visitors per day)
• "Two Buddhas from Japan and Korea", Tokyo National Museum (4545)
• "Kuroda Seiki", Tokyo National Museum (3928)
• "The Art of Zen: from Mind to Form", Tokyo National Museum (3787)
• "Early 20th Century Japanese Collection", Gyeongju National Museum (2910; free entrance)
• "Sakamoto Ryoma: Japan's Favourite Hero", Kyoto National Museum (2603)
• "Pensive Bodhisattvas of Korea and Japan", National Museum of Korea (2580; free entrance)
• "Gyeongju, 918-1392", Gyeongju National Museum (2525; free entrance)
• "The Art of Zen: from Mind to Form", Kyoto National Museum (2502)
• "Cultural Heritage of Naju City, Korea", Naju National Museum (2276; free entrance)

For additional information about the most visited museums and exhibitions, please visit http://theartnewspaper.com/reports/visitor-figures-2016/christo-helps-1-2-million-people-to-walk-on-water/ A range of articles making up The Art Newspaper's Visitor Figures 2016 can be accessed via http://theartnewspaper.com/reports/visitor-figures-2016/  

Pictured above: "The Post-Impressionist Masterpieces" exhibition in Rio de Janeiro