The Alice Walton-funded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art exceeded attendance estimates during its first three years of operation. The museum is celebrating its third anniversary today of its opening on Nov. 11, 2011.
Beth Bobbitt, media relations manager for the museum, said "when Crystal Bridges was first proposed, annual attendance was estimated at 150,000-300,000 guests, and we welcomed more than 650,000 visitors in the first year." Since it opened, the museum has had more than 1.5 million visits, some 390,000 of those occurring in the last year. (Visits include people who are making return trips to the institution).
Total assets for Crystal Bridges, including the buildings and artwork, were $1.16 billion in 2012, the last year for which the museum's tax form 990 is available. Assets were $1.09 billion in 2010 and $1.15 billion in 2011. Figures for 2013 are not yet available.
Alice Walton is the daughter of the late Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. Admission to the museum is free, underwritten by Wal-Mart.
Chad Alligood , curator at Crystal Bridges, came on board in 2013, largely to help museum President Don Bachigalupi get the "State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now" contemporary art exhibition off the ground. He's co-curator of State of the Art along with Bacigalupi.
The pair traveled more than 100,000 miles to 1,000 locales to visit emerging or under-recognized contemporary artists. When their journey was complete, they had selected 227 works from 102 artists who work in materials from Mylar and paper mache to found objects, such as box fans, romance novels and lottery tickets. Officials said the exhibition is the largest and most ambitious undertaking in the museum's short history.
The State of the Art exhibition opened to the public Sept. 13 and runs through Jan. 19. So far, more than 87,000 visitors have viewed the exhibition, though that number is expected to swell over the holidays. The most popular temporary exhibition to date has been "American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell," which drew nearly 122,000 people to the museum over 11 weeks ending in May 2013.
"The actual attendance records have so far exceeded both our internal expectations and those of the world at large," said Alligood. "I think that's a testament to the success of our mission and the way it resonates with audiences here and further afield."
Because the museum is free and open to everyone, "the institution has become a node for the community, a place where people feel ownership and can come back again and again and again," Alligood said.
"We've seen a very intense interest in 'State of the Art,' probably because of the media exposure," Alligood said. For every artist chosen, there was media attention in his or her hometown or city, which helped spread the word about the exhibition and Crystal Bridges. Patrons must traverse through the permanent collection galleries to view State of the Art.
"People come back," he said. "They come back to see their favorites in the show and in the collection, and they bring other folks with them."
Also within the last year, Crystal Bridges acquired a large gold-colored heart to hang over the museum's restaurant, Eleven. Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta) was created by Jeff Koons of New York and went up in Bentonville about the time Koons was preparing for a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The high chromium mirror-polished stainless steel heart sculpture is one of five unique versions created by Koons, each with a different transparent color coating.
Another draw in the last 12 months: California sculptor Leo Villareal's Buckyball, a ball of changing LED lights that brightens the sky near the drive that leads to the museum. Villareal's work is named in honor of theorist and engineer Buckminster Fuller and features two nested geometric spheres that take the shape of a Carbon 60 molecule. The lights change at the whim of a computer program nested in the base on which the ball sits.
A separate measure of the museum's success is the growth of its educational programs, said Niki Stewart, director of education and exhibitions for the museum. In its first year, the field trip program was in pilot testing, with 10,000 to 11,000 students touring the museum. More than 74,000 students -- about 1,000 tour groups -- have passed through the doors during Crystal Bridges' first three years, and the expectation is to have 50,000 students visit annually.
A $10 million endowment from the Walker Family Foundation allows the students and teachers to plan field trips to the museum at no cost to the schools. The school districts and other educational institutions save money on gas for buses, lunch and substitute teachers to cover the classes, among other expenses.
"This is essentially the reason we have been able to see as many students as we have," Stewart said.
"For us, taking away any barriers was No. 1," she said. "The school program was one of Alice's visions from the very beginning."
NW News on 11/11/2014