In a recent article by Gillian Reagan in The New York Observer, the 1stfans program in the Brooklyn Museum, it is debated whether fans should be charged more or online information should be free to all. To me, Shelley has a point: 1stfans is trying to get supporters to feel inside and involved.
Seldom can museums rely on admission fees or membership fee to balance the budget. Even at the Met, where crowds are packed like sardine on weekends , admission fee only counts for 12% of the annual revenue. If the Brooklyn Museum wants to increase the revenue, a few thousands dollars from the membership of 1stfans club alone won’t balance the budget . To some extent, 1stfans is a type of membership-based on social network. You don’t pay because of products or services that you will get, you pay because you love the community or the institution.
On the other hand, I do have a general concern aboutsocial networks for museum institutions. Even though foot traffic is not the best measure for the success of museums, it is important to bring people in. Among visitors, there are regular museum goers who frequent galleries for special exhibitions; but there are also visitors who have never been to museums and the first visit experience can make a huge impact on their views of the museum, some school of art or even the art itself. While 1stfans makes the great use of the internet to connect people, the members are ,in general, already insiders, even though they may live on the other side of the world. The first time visitor, who should be targeted and could benefit more from a museum visit, would hardly know such an exclusive club. (Would you pay 20 dollars for some museum that you have never visited or heard of?)
As new technology has broken the granite walls of major museums and reached out to more people by providing resources accessible through internet, there is still a need to emphasize that nothing is better than seeing objects in person. Photos lie, especially for paintings or sculptures. The indescribable depths of colors in paintings by George Inness look flat and lifeless online. And the pictures cannot command a full sense of appreciation by giving a thumbnail figure with dimensions, thus Albert Bierstadt’s “A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie” looks just as grand as Heade’s “Summer Showers” on your 20 inches monitor.
One has to have seen the original to understand the meaning of art, as John Walsh calls “a lingering examination of the original” that totally absorbs the viewers and transforms him or her emotionally and spiritually. All technology should be measured by whether it can bring the shimmer, joy and sense of accomplishment to the audience. If online information cannot do, then bring the audience in.
On Sept 11, 2001, the special exhibition “The Pharaoh’s Photographer: Harry Burton, Tutankhamun, and the Metropolitan’s Egyptian Expedition” opened at Met. The next few days, even when the city was still dominated by smokes and debris, a few New Yorkers chose to visit the gallery, where, quietly sitting, the objects of the ancient civilization displayed all their beauty and fortitude despite of thousands of years of heat, wind, sands or other human sabotage. It was the utmost console and a manifestation of what would stand in eternity.
Would they feel the same if they had looked at them online?
Urban Art & Antiques 
Hi Brownie,
Your concern about 1stfans and getting people through the door of the Museum seems to leave out the central benefit of 1stfans Membership: monthly events at the Museum where Members interact with art objects. If your point was to say “art looks better in person than online,” then I don’t think you’ll find anyone on the planet who disagrees with you, and I don’t think 1stfans does anything to disavow that notion.
When we created 1stfans, our main goal was to grow personal relationships between the Museum and its Members. In addition to the online stuff, the main benefit of 1stfans Membership is exclusive events at the Museum every month! It is our GOAL to get 1stfans to the Museum regularly in order to deepen their knowledge of the Museum, its collections, and its staff. For those who want to support the Museum but live too far, the most we can do is try to create as similar experience online for them as possible, taking for granted that experience will never be as meaningful as seeing the art in person.
This weekend, for example, our Senior Object Conservator Lisa Bruno is presenting on and displaying Egyptian Animal Mummies for 1stfans. I agree that there is “nothing better than seeing objects in person,” and that is precisely what we are going to do. For 1stfans who live far away and cannot make it to the Museum this weekend, Lisa is doing a Q&A on the 1stfans Facebook group so 1stfans can feel like they are gaining a relationship to the Museum’s objects and staff even though they cannot see them in person every month.
As for recruitment of first-time visitors, we organize our 1stfans events at First Saturdays specifically because that is the time when we have the most first-time visitors in the building. We advertise 1stfans in all of our promotional materials for First Saturdays in order to reach first-time visitors. 1stfans is a more affordable point of entry for those looking to learn more about Museum Membership and have a more meaningful Museum experience.
Lastly, the title of your post, “Art Fans Gotta Pay More?” doesn’t make sense to me at all. Pay more for what? What cost are you referring to, and how does that relate to visiting the Museum in person?
-Will
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