If you’re wondering just how big those blockbuster crowds are, then the annual summaries published by the Art Newspaper are a great place to start.
These comprehensive lists show both overall and daily attendance figures for (predominantly) art exhibitions around the world, ranging from the 10,000+ daily visitors to the mega-blockbusters to far more modest ventures. There are also top ten list by category, such as “Decorative Arts” or “Impressionists” or “Antiquities”.
There are several years of data available online, going back to 2003 (links posted below):
That represents a fair data set for spotting longer term trends or changes over time. Looking at this data, I was interested to see how often exhibitions in Japan top the list, with exhibitions in Tokyo and elsewhere often dominating the top ten. This is in contrast to the most visited museums overall, which are predominantly the big institutions in London, Paris, New York and Washington.
Looking at the Australian scene, the top exhibition for 2010 was the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery (34th overall). Both Queensland Art Gallery and its sister institution, GoMA, managed more than one entry in the top 100 as well as additional entries under specific categories. Other Australian exhibitions to make the list were Masterpieces from Paris at the National Gallery of Australia and the Tim Burton exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial attracted some 4,400 people a day. That sounds like quite a crowd, until you compare it to the top exhibition overall – Hasegawa Tohaku at the Tokyo National Museum – which attracted over 12,000 people per day!