The museum in figures
What does Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen do for Rotterdam?
The alderman for culture asked us last year to show him what a municipal, and now independent, internationally and nationally renowned museum like Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen does for Rotterdam. We inventoried it in 2010 and have recently updated this inventory. Below we will present the results in different chapters. These are perceptual figures of the local and global character of this 163-year old museum. We would like to bring these to your attention, as we are proud of them. In the context of the news of the rising cutbacks - the city council of Rotterdam will cut its arts budget of more than 90 million euros by at least 17 million euros in the coming years - these are results that we have to pay attention to.
Please download the leaflet with a summary of these results here.
0. General
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen manages, conserves and safeguards a municipal collection of 140,000 works of art (126,000 property and 14,000 loans of third parties) and a (national) monument measuring 26,000 m2.
Each year the museum receives an exploitation subsidy from the Rotterdam city council, which no longer fully covers the museum’s rent, fixed costs and salaries (9.8 million euros). In comparison, a smaller museum such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam receives an annual structural subsidy of more than 12.5 million euros.
On average, by itself, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen generates 7.1 million euros annually to contribute to its activities (education, exhibitions, acquisitions, conservation).
The organisation employs approximately 94 FTEs (following a reorganisation in 2005 during which the staff was reduced by 22 FTEs). Taking into account part-time workers and volunteers, approximately 165 people work at the museum.
The museum draws upon a flexible pool of hundreds of suppliers, freelancers and (small) businesses with annual orders of 3-5 million euros.
Since 2006, the museum has been independent and is managed by the Stichting tot Beheer Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
1. Visitors
The museum’s visitors spend approximately 9 million euros in the city each year, which is excluding accommodation costs.
On average approx. 230,000 people visit the museum per year
of which 30% (96.000 in 2010) from the Rotterdam-Rijnmond region;
of which 60% (192,000 in 2010) from the Netherlands (who spend 44 euros in the city per visit per person, according to research conducted by CVO over 2010);
of which 10% (32,000 in 2010) come from abroad (and spend 127 euros spent in the city per visit per person, according to research conducted by CVO over 2010);
Annual number of visitors:
2006 : 182.000
2007 : 187.000
2008 : 238.005
2009 : 225.878
2010 : 320.416
2011 : Expected approx 250,000
2. Publicity
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen appears more than 4,000 times per year in national and international newspapers and magazines. This publicity (without exception of so-called ‘free-publicity’) represents a promotional value of more than 12.5 million euros.
Each year scores of regional, national and foreign television and radio stations cover Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s programme of exhibitions and events.
3. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen as webmuseum and Boijmans TV
Approximately 580,000 people visit the museum online each year. In addition to general information it is also possible to use special integral collection programmes, such as Alma, ArtTube and the collection website. Alma is a research website with which user objects and art objects can be linked. The museum’s own video channel ArtTube has received more than 130,000 visitors until now since its launch in November 2009, three quarters from the Netherlands and a quarter from the rest of the world. Since April 2010, visitors can consult the museum collection online via collectie.boijmans.nl. This website attracted until now more than 115,000 visitors. Visitors generally spend more than 6 minutes on the site.
Boijmans TV (in association with RTV Rijnmond and RO Theater) was launched in 2010 and is watched by more than 1.8 million people in the Rijnmond region that year. Six episodes of Boijmans TV were broadcasted nationally on Cultura24 and on average these were watched by 300,000 viewers.
The museum is producing a television series in 2011 in association with the AVRO and BankGiro Lottery about arts and music: musicians are asked to compose a soundtrack for art objects exhibited in the museum collection. Additionally, a large music contest, concert and educational programming will be held in the museum in association with Rotterdam music institutions.
4. (Inter)national recognition
Within the Province of South Holland, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is in first place in terms of recognition of museums (research 2009/2010)
Within the Netherlands as a whole, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is in fifth place behind the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Open Air Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen won the BankGiro Lottery prize 2010 in 2010 for the most public-friendly museum, amounting to 100,000 euros.
The percentage of foreign visitors has risen in recent years from about a small 20,000 in 2007 to 32,000 in 2010.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is recognised as an innovative and renewing museum because of its educational work and activities on the web such as web channel ArtTube and Boijmans TV.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is an internationally recognised phenomenon. The museum is known for its world-class presentations and scholarship. The museum has its own series of scientific publications about the collection, the Boijmans Studies. Over the past year, it has undertaken research into Max Beckmann in the Netherlands, the artist's studio of Anthony van Dijk, and the carrying-ons of master forger of Han van Meegeren. Conservation of works by Fra Angelico, Rembrandt and Dalí were internationally conducted and presented.
The museum has an excellent so-called ‘loaning relationship’ with other museums. The quality of the Rotterdam collection makes it possible to secure loans of (exceptional) quality from museums such as Tate Modern, the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou and the Louvre.
A number of successful exhibitions of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen recently went abroad to be displayed in international institutions. The overview exhibition of Charley Toorop of 2009 and ‘The Big Eyes of Kees van Dongen’ of 2010 were displayed at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2010/2011). The fashion exhibition ‘The Art of Fashion' of 2009 was recently displayed at Art Museum Wolfsburg (spring/summer 2011). The exhibition about Johan Thorn Prikker of 2010 also went abroad. Museum Kunst palast in Düsseldorf, partner in this project, presented this exhibition in the spring of 2011. The overview exhibition of ‘Marijke van Warmerdam ‘Close by in the Distance’ which is displayed in Rotterdam this year, will travel onwards to Museum Serralves in Porto (spring of 2012) and the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf (winter 2012-2013). Furthermore, we work together with the Gemäldegalerie SMB in Berlin to prepare the exhibition 'The Way to Van Eyck', which will be opened in the autumn of 2012 in Rotterdam and will travel onwards to Berlin at the start of 2013.
5. Schools and education
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen offers educational activities for children from 3 years of age.
The museum annually welcomes more than 27,000 primary and secondary schoolchildren, and more than 4,500 students from vocational training and higher secondary education, in particular from schools and trainings in Rotterdam and the surrounding area.
Each year 10,000 primary schoolchildren are ferried from their schools to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and back again in a free bus sponsored by Turing Foundation.
The museum is the only museum in the Netherlands that has employed a culture coach since the school year 2009/2010. This culture coach teaches intensely all around the school year at two primary schools in a power-district as part of the schools outreach programme. There are close ties between the schools and the museum: the lessons are based on the museum’s collection and the pupils become familiar with the museum through their visits to the museum.
The museum receives approximately 40,000 visitors per year who participate in activities such as symposiums, guided tours, courses, excursions, lectures etc.
The museum’s curators and other staff members give weekly lectures at colleges and universities.
Visitors may enrol for scores of programmes, varying from guided tours by actors of the RO Theater to classes for students at the Willem de Kooning Academy who follow standard master classes (‘meet and greet’) by artists who exhibit in the museum. And not to forget, Art4Kids, a biennial exhibition where children can independently purchase their (first) work of art for 30 euros.
The museum has a dedicated educational space (the Art Studio) for children and adults, where they successfully collaborate with permanent partners such as HipHopHuis and RO Theater.
Each year the museum reaches more than 50,000 young visitors, teenagers and those in their early twenties from all sections of the community partly through its educational programmes and partly through association with media partners.
Entry to the museum is free for visitors up to the age of eighteen.
6. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen for all Rotterdam citizens
For Rotterdam citizens and those with low incomes, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has introduced free entry on Wednesdays. This day is an admission-free day and it has meanwhile become the second busiest day of the week. There are also free lectures in the galleries on this day.
Visitors to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen never have to pay for entry to the ground floor of the Bodon wing: the library, book shop, espressobar, VSB Art Studio, print cabinet and exhibitions in the Serra gallery and Willem van der Vorm gallery are admission-free.
In addition to the usual reductions, the Rotterdam City Pass is also valid at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is available for hire for receptions, parties and congresses upon appointment.
The Turing Museum Bus annually ferries 10,000 Rotterdam primary schoolchildren to the museum for free.
The museum has 1,600 friends of the museum – mostly from Rotterdam – with an annual membership of 40 euros.
Together with Villa Zebra and a few other museums, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen welcomes over 1,900 children in Jeugdvakantieland in Ahoy each summer.
Many people watch Boijmans TV in Rotterdam.
7. Social cohesion
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen regularly undertakes outreach programmes such as Dropstuff, Pal Maas and Jeugdvakantieland. For this we seek partnerships with organisations with complementary expertise.
The museum also welcomes institutions from the city in the Art Studio.
Many Rotterdam schools with and extremely mixed population of pupils visit the museum, both from primary and secondary schools. The museum attempts to make the museum as accessible as possible for this purpose (children up to 18 years are free, Turing Museum Bus).
Thanks to the culture coach the children at two primary schools in a power-district get close ties with the museum and its collection.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is developing the project 174 + 1 Cultures / 174 + 1 Encounters centring on the 174 nationalities that live and work in Rotterdam. In preparation for this, we looked at a similar project in Liverpool and we are now carrying out research supported by the Mondriaan Foundation.
The museum has established Young Successful Associates, a group representing the new generation who will help to shape the future of Rotterdam and the museum. The group reflects the demographic composition of urban Rotterdam. The museum offers the possibility to learn how to collect art. Members enjoy great advantages such as visits to artists’ studios and private collections together with curators, a glimpse of the inner workings of the museum and the opportunity to meet new people as part of an interesting network.
8. Self-generated funds
Since 2010 the museum’s municipal subsidy of 9.8 million euros no longer covers the museum’s salary costs and the rental and maintenance of the building. This makes the museum extremely vulnerable in the event of cutbacks, as they will affect the basic structure immediately.
All the museum’s activities, including exhibitions, education and conservation are paid for by funds generated by the museum itself (entrance fees, shop sale, the restaurant, fundraising, sponsorship, and bequests). All acquisitions (which in nearly all cases become the property of the city council) are also funded by third parties.
The museum’s self-generated funds since its privatisation:
2006 – 6.3 million euros
2007 – 7.2 million euros
2008 – 5.1 million euros
2009 – 8.0 million euros
2010 – 8.4 million euros
An average of 7.1 million euros was annually generated by the museum itself.
This amount funds the museum’s activities and the acquisitions, which become the property of the city of Rotterdam. The museum’s own cost coverage percentage amounted to 47% in 2010, one of the highest percentages of any museum in the Netherlands (the state standard is 17.5%). That means that the museum contributes 47% towards its own costs (which come in through third parties) and 53% is covered by municipal subsidy (which exclusively covers rent, fixed costs and 90% of the wages).
An important part of its self-generated funds consists of special purpose subsidies, for example for acquisitions and research (including BankGiro Lottery, SNS Reaal Fonds, VSBfonds, Mondriaan Foundation, Vereniging Rembrandt, Fonds W. van Rede) and project subsidies for exhibitions, websites (Volkskracht Foundation, Prins Bernhard Culture Fund, Elise Mathilde Fund, KF Hein Fund, VSBfonds, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, country subsidies), and educational projects (VSBfonds, SNS Reaal Fund, Turing Foundation, Mondriaan Foundation).
9. Artists and designers from Rotterdam, the City Collection
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen structurally invests in artists and designers from Rotterdam via exhibitions, interventions, commissions and acquisitions. Including the investment in the Submarine Wharf together with the Port of Rotterdam in 2010, over the past five years the museum has spent more than 2 million euros on art, artists and designers from Rotterdam. In addition the museum receives a municipal subsidy (formerly as state subsidy) of 177,000 euros per year (will be reduced to 130,000 euros per year). All other funds invested in this talented group were generated by the museum itself. These included dozens of acquisitions, commissions, exhibitions and associated fees. These spendings are a great contribution to these artists’ and designers’ incomes and reputations.
For years Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has been organising the biennial Rotterdam Design Prize, in collaboration with the Design Prize Foundation, which for twenty years has been seen as the most important design prize in the Netherlands.
10. Collections and exhibitions, global and local
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s collection is (inter)nationally renowned. The museum has a permanent display of 3.000 works, ranging from old masters to contemporary art and from medieval utensils to industrial design. The collections are structurally displayed in the Van der Steur wing. Each year we lend 300 to 500 art works to exhibitions all over the world. These works are seen by more than 3 million people world-wide each year: they are the city’s ambassadors.
Of the 140,000 objects in the collection, over the past 163 years more than 30,000 art works have been donated to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation by more than 1630 individuals, mostly from Rotterdam. Many of these were people who wished to give something back to the city in which they prospered. Every day, dozens of collectors follow in their footsteps.
In 2009 and 2010 exhibitions organised by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen were shown internationally in cities such as Wellington (New Zealand), Sydney, Paris, Leuven, Stockholm and London. The museum has a large international network and maintains ongoing relationships with many museums around the world.
In its exhibitions programme and research, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen devotes a great deal of attention to talent from Rotterdam – past and present – and the context from which they have emerged. Artists and designers such as Jacques Jongert, Jaap Gidding, Hella Jongerius, Kees van Dongen, Wally Elenbaas, Daan van Golden, Joep van Lieshout and many emerging artists are represented in the City Collection and have been highlighted in exhibitions and publications based upon intensive art-historical research.
In addition to the approximate 25 exhibitions in the museum at the Museumpark, for the coming five years Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is developing a programme of international contemporary art exhibitions in the Submarine Wharf in the RDM complex. This is a partnership with the Port of Rotterdam, which has provided the necessary funding.
11. Creative industries in Rotterdam
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen stimulates the creative industry of Rotterdam to the tune of 3 to 5 million euros per year via self-generated funds.
The museum draws upon a flexible pool of designers, printers and technicians for the installation of its exhibitions and employs the services of conservators, photographers, freelance researchers, tour guides, fine art shipping companies, insurers, designers, filmmakers, actors, translators, caterers, construction firms etc. These include hundreds of individual freelancers and small and medium-sized companies. A large part of this spin-off takes place in Rotterdam and its direct environment. Through orders amounting to 3-5 million euros per year, the museum supplies a steady stream of income to this group of creative industries in Rotterdam.
As the largest museum in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen provides support for countless creative initiatives and institutions in the city. These include partnerships (the Museumpark, Boijmans TV in association with RO Theater and RTV Rijnmond), educational networks (with SKVR , Villa Zebra and Hoge School Rotterdam, Museumnacht, Wereld van Witte de With etc.) and memberships of committees. Loans from the collection to other museums in the city are provided free of handling costs. We have entered into an educational agreement with the Chabot Museum so that a proportion of the schoolchildren who use the free Turing bus service also visit the Chabot Museum.
Via the NBTC and VNO/NCW, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen participates in local and national marketing initiatives such as Holland Art Cities.
12. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Rotterdam’s business community
Approximately fifty Rotterdam-based businesses support the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation with a fixed annual contribution of 2,500 euros. Several Rotterdam-based firms (Ploum Lodder Princen, Rabobank Rotterdam, the Port of Rotterdam, PriceWaterhouseCoopers) support the museum’s activities over a number of years with services and resources to the value of 25,000 euros per year. Museum Boijmans participates in a network of companies and maintains contacts with the Erasmus MC, the University, the Hogeschool and with (major) collectors from Rotterdam or associated with the city. The museum’s patron organisations include representatives from and CEOs of companies such as ABN-AMRO Rotterdam, Unilever, Dura Vermeer, the Van der Vorm-HAL, Ploum Lodder Princen, Van Beuningen families, and others.
Just as Museum Boijmans is a respected name for these Rotterdam-based companies, and in some cases has been for generations, the museum is also a magnet for new companies and their employees, an important factor in their decision to settle in Rotterdam.
13. Conclusion: the value of the museum for the city
Through its collections, activities and knowledge, the museum provides challenging and meaningful experiences to 300,000 individual visitors and many more via the web and other media. That is what it is all about. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen also functions as a meeting place and unifying element for the urban community in which many Rotterdam citizens – young and old, from north and south, rich and poor – come together and can be inspired and get excited by what previous generations have achieved. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is now eleven generations old. The twelfth and thirteenth generations are already actively taking possession of the museum.
14. The future: to a new Collections Building
With the realisation of a new building for the museum's collection, recently adopted by the city council, the city meets its obligations and will provide for its own and other’s cultural heritage entrusted to the city council.
The Collections Building will solve the depot problems for the next 30 years.
The Collections Building is the most innovative, efficient and profitable solution for a depot situation, which has been a large (non-performance) risk for the city for years.
The Collections Building will create ties between (large) private collectors from Rotterdam and Rotterdam, and is also a magnet for collections elsewhere in the Netherlands and from (near) abroad.
The Collections Building is a once-only investment on behalf of the economy of 38 million and provides structural work for 10 permanent jobs and about 50 suppliers in the museum’s flexible pool.
The city will achieve another landmark with the Collections Building.
The Collections Building is a great example of Rotterdam’s innovative power.
The Collections Building is open to the public: to all Rotterdam citizens and to all visitors to Rotterdam.
15. In conclusion
No inflation correction was applied to the municipal subsidy of 9.8 million euros over the past three years, and the city council has recently announced that it will again not apply any inflation correction this year. Furthermore, 2% of the budget for 2012 will be reduced. A new four-year budget cycle will start in 2013. It is already known that 20% of the municipal budget for art and culture will be reduced. This will badly affect the Rotterdam art world, which is forced to hand in 17 million euros out of approximately 90 million euros.
The museum is of course aware of the difficult position the city council is in, but it has to be said that a subsidy cut will have a dramatic effect on the effectivity and the continuity of the museum, and also on the contribution made by the museum to the quality of life in and appeal of Rotterdam. We can only cover a possible gap in the budget by reducing our staff and the scope and maintenance of the building. The presentation of the heritage of Rotterdam to the next generations will visibly suffer from these cutbacks.
Sjarel Ex
September 2011
