In Ted Gioia’s chart titled, “The Prisoners Have Been Released from Cultural Bondage”, the second example shown states that “Web users obsessively scroll through images online, but art museum attendance is down, especially at large premier institutions.” This can be seen as both a good trend and a bad trend, for reasons such as it can benefit the individual if they are not physically able to visit art museums, and for the fact that art museums not getting as much attendance as they used to can cause these museums to shut down.
For people who are disabled, or those who cannot afford visiting museums, scrolling through images online can benefit them greatly, because of this, it is a positive trend regarding Gioia’s topic. On the internet, you essentially have access to everything. If you can not afford to visit an art museum, you can easily search up what art museum you want to visit, either go to their website or just go to the “images” option on your search engine, and you can see exactly what the museum has in store. Although a good amount of art museums are free of charge to visit, some people cannot visit them because they just do not have access to transportation to visit said art museum, or gas money to visit. Individuals who are disabled in any way can also benefit from this trend of simply viewing images online because it makes it easier for them to be engaged without putting themselves in any sort of danger by going to these museums.
Although this is beneficial to some, it can also bring negative outcomes to the owners, employees, and even artists who display their artwork in art museums. If art museums continue to lack in attendance, this can cause them to lose money, causing people to lose their jobs, or even leading to the museums shutting down completely. I believe that this trend will increase highly throughout the years, especially with how fast technology has been improving, I will not be surprised if art museums end up adding holographic attendances to their showings–and I would not be surprised if this already exists in some places. Another outcome that can occur because of this trend can be small art museums shutting down, this can cause a huge negative effect on the workers, obviously, and the artists who display their artwork especially because smaller art museums are typically do not really get much attendance anyway. This can also have a negative effect on the people who live near said small museums, if these museums are in a small neighborhood, it can be one of the only sources of entertainment for the individuals who live in it, and shutting something like this down would be incredibly disappointing.
A huge example of something similar to this occurring was during 2020, when a small museum located inside of a Macy’s was forced to shut down because they barely got any visitors due to it being a small museum, and they did not get enough m0ney from visitors to keep this museum alive. Nina Kravinsky from a NPR article about this topic states, “For many small museums across the country, it’s been over a year since their doors have been open to visitors, putting them in the same life-or-death situation as much of the rest of the arts sector. Some smaller museums have struggled with accessing federal grants. And unlike large institutions, they don’t have large endowments and can’t fall back on deep reserves.” (Kravinsky 1). This is ultimately supporting my idea of smaller museums not succeeding as well as larger ones because of individuals not visiting, Laura Lott, the American Alliance of Museum CEO, adds on that “Museums exist to protect our cultural heritage and the things that we as a society have decided are important,” Lott says. “Unlike a restaurant or a shop, which we would also hate to lose, but would, when economic times return … probably come back in some form, once a museum closes, it’s closed forever, generally.” (Lott 1). It would not be a surprise if more museums lose artwork due to people just not showing up, resulting them to lose money.
Overall, while easy access to art on your devices can help certain individuals, it can cause harm to other people as well, and it is important to recognize small museums and support them so that they do not eventually shut down.