Tel Aviv Museum of Art among 50 most popular museums worldwide

The museum was ranked 56th last year, but climbed to 48th place, mainly due to a record-breaking 670,000 visitors to the November-May 2021 exhibition of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. 

The ranking is published annually by the international art magazine and is based on the number of visitors to museums around the world. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art had 1,070,714 visitors in 2022.

In addition to Yayoi Kusama’s installation — “A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe,” a forest of giant, neon-pink tentacles — another draw was last July’s exhibit “The Last Photograph: Ran Tal after Micha Bar-Am,” in which Bar-Am, considered the father of Israeli photojournalism, opened up his 50-year archive for filmmaker Ran Tal.

Other popular exhibits included “Material Imagination: Israeli Art from the Museum’s Collection,” “Annette Messager: Desires, Disorders” and “Shira Zelwer: Gathering of Birds” by the Shiff Art Prize-winning artist, along with special projects for the museum’s 90th-anniversary events.

“This is a remarkable achievement for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, to be ranked among the largest and most renowned museums globally,” said Tania Coen Uzzielli, director of the museum. “It demonstrates the museum’s maturity and relevance in presenting world-class exhibitions that captivate a wide audience.”

Jessica Steinberg