A blockbuster art exhibition can double the annual attendance of an art museum and pull in significant amounts of money. Bring Vermeer’s “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” to the Frick Collection in New York and there will be a line of people snaking around the block. But there are signs that the blockbuster game is no longer what it was.
It’s a telling indicator that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York doesn’t have a major traveling show this Christmas season. Rising costs, the growing difficulty of securing loans, and a lack of curating talent have made the blockbuster exhibition a hazardous enterprise.
Johannes Vermeer: Het meisje met de parel (Girl with a Pearl Earring). Wikipedia Commons
