A self-portrait dated 1917 presented during Oscar Kokoschka’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris on September 23, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Thomas SAMSON)
Three years after the start of the Covid-19 crisis and still deprived of their Asian visitors, the major Parisian museums have recovered with a marked increase in attendance in 2022 which tends to return to its 2019 levels.
If tourists from Asia are still missing, foreigners, especially Americans, have returned to the cultural highlights of the capital which has seen the major exhibitions (Kokoschka, Munch, Frida Kahlo… ) acclaimed and the strong comeback of the local public in the museums of the City of Paris, according to figures published Thursday.
With 7.8 million visitors, the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, recorded an increase of 170% compared to 2021 but 19% less than in 2019 (9.6 million).
Americans (18% of attendance in 2022 compared to 16% in 2019) are making a strong comeback, but the Chinese public (8% of attendance in 2019) has remained “virtually absent”.
An absence “compensated” by an increasing presence of Europeans (Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain) even if the museum says it has suffered from international mobility restrictions still in force in the first quarter.
“A tremendous encouragement”, comments its president Laurence des Cars, determined to give priority, like many of her counterparts, to welcoming visitors. They were 60% to survey for the first time the galleries of the Louvre last year, 45% being less than 25 years old.
To improve the conditions of their visit, a daily gauge of 30,000 tickets available was decided in June, as well as the return of a night on Friday and a live performance offer in response to current events at the museum.
The Palace of Versailles, one of the most visited sites in France, has also benefited from the return of foreign visitors who represented 77% of attendance in 2022. It totals 6.9 million visitors (visits to the castle and shows) , i.e. 16% less than in 2019 (8.2 million), a far cry from the 73% drop recorded in 2021.
– Major exhibitions –
Munch retrospective at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris on September 16, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Emmanuel DUNAND)
A beacon of Impressionism in the heart of Paris, the Musée d’Orsay attracted 3.2 million visitors in 2022 (-10% compared to 2019, a record year with 3.6 million) including 58% from abroad and a share of under-18s which will reach 14% in 2022. Its counterpart, the Orangerie, has almost returned to its 2019 level, with just over a million people having passed through its doors (-1%).
The major autumn retrospective on the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch at Orsay is on the way to breaking a record with 600,000 visitors three weeks from its closing.
Reconnecting with the tradition of major multidisciplinary exhibitions which made it unique, the Center Pompidou welcomed three million people, mainly from the Ile-de-France and Paris, and doubled its attendance compared to 2021 (1.5 million), finding “a level close to that of 2019”, according to the museum.
Its permanent collections of modern and contemporary art even recorded more visitors than in 2019 (1.5 million compared to 1.4).
After six years of renovation work for half of them, the 14 museums of the City of Paris record for their part “a historic record”, underlines with AFP the Paris Museum establishment.
Among them, the Carnavalet museum on the history of Paris, reopened in 2021, totals more than a million visitors as does the Petit Palais while the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris (MAM) counts nearly 560,000. visitors, almost twice as many as in 2019, attracted by major exhibitions such as those devoted to the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka, at the MAM, or Frida Kahlo at the Palais Galliera.
For its first full year of opening to the public since 2019, the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN), which manages around a hundred cultural sites including the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, the Arc de Triomphe and the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, is also returning to its pre-health crisis level with more than ten million visitors in 2022.
© 2023 AFP
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