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Preconceptions can be the death of you. Another "voice crying in the wilderness" piece was in the offing. It was going to wail, "Why, why, why, in so visually oriented a society, doesn’t the population, especially those who grew up with square eyes from watching monitors and video screens, mob the doors of our museums?"
Imagine the amazement and delight when, after asking a few questions of one of San Diego’s most important museum heads, I found that our youngest generations are thronging to museums in numbers greater than ever before in history.
My expert is Hugh Davies, the David C. Copley Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. (The David C. Copley Director because his position is now endowed in the manner of university chairs and orchestra positions. Fund-raisers unfamiliar with this method of financing should prick up their ears.)
Quickly, Davies debunks my theory on declining museum attendance. "That's not the case," he says. "Just look at the Monet show at the San Diego Museum of Art, for example. There were long lines waiting to get in. We’ve been doing an extensive survey of our audience. The thing that popped up (in these surveys) was that the greatest growth in attendance has been among 18- to 24-year-olds."
Davies agrees on part of the original point, however. "This is a very visual generation," he says. "I think they're being attracted (to museums) because, with museums, you can go when you want to, take your own course through the galleries and stop and browse and take time where you wish."
This "convenience factor" gives museums an advantage over their performing arts brethren, where the audience must go at a specific time, take an assigned seat, have an intermission and go home. "The museum experience is more interactive," says Davies. "The viewer determines when, where and how long."
It appears increased attendance as a whole, and especially among the young, is a national trend. "Museums have discovered that because people spend a lot of time in front of monitors, be they computers or television, originals have taken on a new importance," Davies says. "They can see a painter on cable TV or the Internet and this creates a real charisma about the originals."
When the twin phenomena of the Internet and cultural programming on television first happened, Davies says, the thought was that once an artist or a painting or sculpture had been seen, the viewers wouldn't want to bother with the original. "Just the opposite has proved to be true," says Davies.
Something very similar happened in the 1920s when the first coffee table arts books came out. Instead of dampening interest in the original and consequently drying up museum attendance, more customers turned out. The same goes for videos, which at one time Hollywood feared would hobble the film industry.
The accessibility to information about the arts has growing numbers of people on quests to learn more. "There is a surge in the study of graphic design and computer animation as well as general courses in sculpture, painting and general design," says Davies. With the likes of Disney, Warner Bros., MTV, Microsoft and the lot, there's a constant need for design and hence, a lot more jobs in these areas.
"Take Disney for example," Davies says. "They spread horizontally from a cartoon to a TV show to a theme park attraction to products — you can find Donald Duck T-shirts in China. All this needs design of some sort. We have developed a generation that is visually literate and sometimes self-taught, despite our education (system)."
Attendance at both of the Museum of Contemporary Art's campuses, in La Jolla and Downtown, is breaking records. Membership is at an all-time high.
In part, Davies credits both the turnstile and membership growth to the strong economy Yet he also comes back to the purity of his product. "All museums are experiencing a surge in attendance for these two reasons: We’re convenient to use and we have the originals!"
If your interest has been stimulated, check out Davies' museums or those of his peers. The comprehensive entertainment calendar in this magazine is a great place to start. And before you start worrying about your wallet, don’t forget free Tuesdays at the museums in Balboa Park. Call 231-9494 to see which museums are free on which Tuesdays of the month.
An author, lecturer and consultant, John Willett has critiqued music, dance and the arts for more than 17 years.
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