The Israel Museum in Jerusalem was ranked at number 92 on the list curated by The Art Newspaper with 855,157 visitors in 2024.
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art was among the world’s 100 most visited museums in 2024, according to a list announced by The Art Newspaper on Tuesday.
The Tel Aviv-based museum ranked 78th on the prestigious list with more than 1 million visitors (1,057,362) last year, which is a 17 percent increase from 2023.
This is the seventh year in a row that it has been included on the list.
The museum was only open for 260 days in 2024 because of security concerns surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, leading to a 23 percent decrease when compared to projected numbers, according to The Art Newspaper.
“This international recognition is particularly significant in a year marked by war and a cultural boycott against Israel in the global art scene,” the museum said.
The museum noted its most popular exhibit in the past year has been “To Catch a Fleeting Moment: 150 Years of Impressionism,” which features approximately 80 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the 1860s through the 1930s.
It also marks the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition held in Paris in 1874.
The exhibit, which opened in October 2024 and runs until Aug. 2, has so far garnered hundreds of thousands of visitors, according to the museum.
In front of the museum is Hostages Square, where there are regularly press conferences, rallies, and other events in solidarity with the hostages who were brutally kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during their deadly massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“I’m especially proud in this difficult time that the Tel Aviv Museum is gaining international recognition and placed among the top museums in the world,” said Tania Coen-Uzzielli, director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
“The museum, next to the Hostages Square that has already become an integral part of us for over a year, due to the war, has become a cultural anchor of Israeli society, a healing space for many communities and a place of comfort and hope for the general public.”
Uzzielli thanked the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality and Mayor Ron Huldai for supporting the museum.
She also gave a “heartfelt thanks to the dedicated museum staff who worked and worked tirelessly to maintain relevance and redefine the museum’s role in times of crisis, and at the same time present non-stop exhibitions of fine art from Israel and the world.”
“I thank the large crowd that chose to come to the Tel Aviv Museum in these times,” she added. “Thanks to you, we continue at all times to be committed to preserving culture for the general public and for the future of the place where we live.”
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem was ranked at number 92 on the list curated by The Art Newspaper with 855,157 visitors in 2024.
“The decrease in tourists visiting Israel forced the museum to go out and visit communities with its guides and staff. Group visits to the museum helped balance the group attendance figures,” said the museum, according to The Art Newspaper.
The Musée du Louvre has been the “perennial number one” most visited museum in the world and in 2024, more than 8 million (8,737,050) people visited the iconic spot in Paris. It lost 1 percent of visitors in 2024.