Kandinsky Gives Guggenheim Record Visitors

New York’s Guggenheim Museum experienced record attendance in 2009—particularly because of a retrospective on Wassily Kandinsky. According to the museum’s records, 1,164,098 visited last year, which is 16 percent higher than 2008. Once Kandinsky, a retrospective on the Russian avant-garde artist opened, the museum was the busiest it’s been since they began tracking visitors in 1992. The exhibition, which closed this week, has earned the Guggenheim’s record for best-attended single exhibition, previously held by a retrospective on its builder Frank Lloyd Wright in 2008. Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong called the climbing numbers “a tremendous vote of confidence,” adding that the majority of visitors come from beyond the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.