/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-MEXICO: Museums Await New ‘Friends’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, May 20 2003 (IPS) - The nearly 1,000 museums in Mexico are among the best in the world, say experts, but they are suffering the lack of visitors and growing financial troubles – and there are few plans to update their collections.

The authorities in charge of museum management recognise the problems and have launched an effort to confront them through a local version of the international programme, "Museums and their friends".

The programme, which aims to attract visitors and create a network of volunteers to support museums and their collections, emerged as part of International Museum Day, observed May 18 on an initiative of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation).

With free admission, an advertising campaign, workshops and conferences, Mexico’s museums worked to raise awareness on that day about the riches they hold and the problems they face. Most of the museums are run by the state.

In the Mexican capital, just two of 10 museum-goers surveyed by ‘Reforma’ newspaper from Mar. 1 to Mar. 20 said they regularly visit these holders of the country’s cultural wealth.

The study, conducted in interviews of some 2,200 people outside museums, revealed that women tend to prefer museums focused on art and entertainment, while men enjoy educational and history museums more.

The average age of museum-goers was 33, and half had studied at the university level.

"All of the museums of Mexico could not simultaneously attract the same number of people as one minute of the latest soap opera does," said painter Jishai Jusidman, whose works have been exhibited in several museums here and in Europe.

According to arts promoter Pablo Helguera, one of the leading problems of Mexican museums is that they do not make new acquisitions. There were many important collections developed up to the 1950s, but since then there has been very little, he said.

Budget cuts and limited funds for cultural activities, the lack of new investments in museums, and the country’s low educational level ensure that museums remain in a state of crisis, commented Eduardo Nivón, researcher for the anthropology department at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico.

From 1960 to 2001, the average education of Mexicans increased from four to 7.7 years of schooling, but the country was ranked among the last in the world as far as educational quality, according to studies conducted by UNESCO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Without a well-educated population, it is unlikely that museums can be successful and attract financing for cultural education, Carlos Lemus, who works as a curator in several private museums, said in a conversation with IPS.

Nevertheless, foreign visitors to Mexico’s more famous museums, like the Anthropology Museum or Modern Art Museum, comment on the great number of local students they see at these institutions.

But Lemus said that students go to the museums to complete homework requirements, and most just copy the descriptions that accompany the artefact or painting, without reflecting about what they saw when they return home, or attend class the next day.

Even so, the lack of visitors does not necessarily undercut the great wealth held by Mexican museums. The International Council of Museums, an organisation associated with UNESCO, maintains that Mexico is among the countries with the best museum holdings in the world.

The principal museums were founded here in the 1920s and in the 1970s. In both periods, governments rooted in the agrarian revolution of the beginning of that century sought to institutionalise a national culture.

But in the 1980s and after, economic crisis took a toll on investment in Mexican culture. Museums suffered budget cuts and the private sector’s contributions dried up.

Héctor Rivero, former director of the International Council on Museums in Mexico, commented that the current financial situation is particularly difficult, and the low number of visitors does not help matters any. But efforts are underway to boost museum admissions and raise cultural awareness – through advertising and school outreach.

It is one of the central aims of "Museums and their friends", an endeavour that will continue throughout the rest of the year.

Curator Lemus says he wants to be optimistic about attempts to boost the number of museum visitors and to create support networks, but he notes that similar efforts in the past did not bear much fruit.