“Compared to other arts, like performing arts, there is not a specific draw—like your friend starring in a play,” Platts says.
But Abrahams remains undeterred by the figures suggesting lagging attendance, warning that statistics are not always reliable.
“Our method of tracking [attendees] is not very scientifc, because we don’t require swiping,” Benefield says. “Hopefully we’ll have a better system in place [for tracking students] with renovations.”
Benefield also notes that it is normal for attendance figures to fluctuate.
“If you looked at the figures for Lamont Library attendance, you would probably see them going up and down, too,” he says.
Besides expecting this variation in its numbers, the HUAM leaders also note that the museums have a principally academic objective, which makes the absolute number of visitors less immediately important.
“Our primary mission is to serve the undergraduate population in their learning and the staff and faculty who do research,” Abrahams says. “Earned income from admittance is not a priority, because the University’s focus is on teaching and research.”
GETTING FRIENDLY WITH ART
Students and directors alike have racked their brains for ways of attracting a wider undergraduate following.
“We want to make reaching out to Harvard undergrads our number one priority,” Benefield says. The best way to accomplish this outreach, however, is open to debate.
According to Abrahams, a campus-wide postering campaign has been considered and rejected for lack of evidence supporting the efficacy of advertising that is not geared toward a specific event. Instead, Abrahams encourages students to join Student Friends and attend one of the many events that the group hosts and publicizes.
The Student Friends have recently implemented black-tie gatherings and now have a schedule of weekly events, two costly and time-consuming investments that may be responsible for the group’s increasing membership.
“Over the past year, our membership has more than doubled, which definitely shows that there is interest once people discover HUAM,” boasts Kusy, who also offers that the Student Friends have developed a mission “to show that the museum can be a social and relaxing location for students.”
Toward this end, the group currently sponsors a number of monthly holiday-themed tours and receptions, using the museum “as a venue for social space” to encourage student HUAM attendance. In this month alone, Student Friends hosted a Valentine’s Day tour of the Fogg and tea, a lecture on the visual and cultural history of Paris, and a professionally-led hands-on workshop on art conservation. Meanwhile, Platts routinely offers guided tours of the museums to friends and neighbors free of charge in an effort to introduce the collections to rookie visitors.
“Our mission is to bring students into the art museums, especially those who aren’t VES [Visual and Environmental Studies] or art history majors [in the hopes of] de-mystifying art museums,” Platts says.
The art museums remain an untapped resource among students. But as Platts teasingly suggests, if students cannot find any other reason to pay a visit, they should go simply to satisfy their voyeuristic fantasies.
“It’s always fun to watch people circulate through museums and watch what they spend time on and what they don’t,” he says.
—Staff writer Mary Catherine Brouder can be reached at mbrouder@fas.harvard.edu