The number of visits to art museums and galleries reached record numbers last year

Finns the number of visits to art museums and art galleries increased to record numbers last year, tells recent statistics from Frame, the information center for contemporary art.

More than five million visits were made to visual arts venues last year. According to Frame, the number is an all-time record and 30 percent higher than last year.

Most of the most popular destinations are located in Helsinki. The most popular was the Ateneum, which was visited more than half a million times. The Kiasma museum of contemporary art, the Amos Rex art museum, the Helsinki art museum HAM and the Espoo modern art museum Emma were also at the top in terms of the number of visits. Outside the capital region, the most popular art museum was Aboa Vetus Ars Nova in Turku.

Frame says that a total of three million visits were made to Finland’s 67 art museum destinations last year, which means a 37 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The Museum Office by the year 2022 was partly exceptional for museum operations, as corona restrictions were still in effect at the beginning of the year. This affected the number of visitors to the museums. Frame told earlier that the number of visitors to art museums started to return to the level before the corona pandemic in the second year.

Galleries sales of works, on the other hand, fell clearly. The sales of the galleries that responded to the survey were around seven million euros last year, while the previous year it was around 10 million euros. Most of the sales were made in private galleries. About 2,500 works were sold.

“The information produced by statistics also manifests the effects of social situations on the field of visual arts. For example, the art trade reacts sensitively to the uncertain economic situation, which clearly slowed down consumers’ art purchases last year,” says Frame’s communications manager Rosa Kuosmanen in the bulletin.

According to last year’s statistics, there were 122 art galleries in 32 different locations in Finland. About one and a half million visits were made to the galleries during the year, which is about 300,000 visits more than the previous year.

“The potential of the field of fine arts could be further increased by investing more strongly in, for example, the export and sale of contemporary art and also exhibition content,” says Kuosmanen.