MU SE M AGA Z I NE
Museums, Money, and How Much You Need To Get Into Them By Austin Henderson
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hink of the last time you visited a museum. Perhaps you saw the blockbuster Christian Dior exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum over the winter break, witnessed Guillermo del Toro’s whimsical collections at the Art Gallery of Ontario, or just wanted to take a study break and admire the Agnes’s spring exhibitions. Do you remember having to shell out some cash or tap your debit card to get into these museums? In many cultural institutions, admission–especially to temporary exhibitions–is mandatory, but for others, you get a free pass. This issue hasn’t really been discussed until recently, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City announced that it would
charge a $25 admission fee for out-ofstate visitors, effective March 2018. The reasons behind the Met’s mandatory admission rate are just as abundant as the masterpieces in its collection. Last February, it was announced that the landmark museum was experiencing a $40 million deficit due to overspending throughout many of its departments. As a result, the Met laid off approximately 90 staff members and made cutbacks to a $600 million proposed expansion plan. As the home of the illustrious Met Gala, and with the title of the world’s secondmost-visited museum–surpassed only by a little-known Parisian gallery, the Louvre–such a deficit is almost impossible to comprehend.
