By CLOE CABRERA | The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 12, 2012
The new Dalí Museum celebrated its one-year anniversary Wednesday with two big announcements: record attendance and a new slate of exhibits, including avant-garde artist Jeff Koons and modern master Pablo Picasso.
More than 370,000 ticketed patrons visited the museum last year — double the attendance in 2010 — setting a record for the museum.
During an anniversary celebration Wednesday, museum director Hank Hine told visitors the museum generated $52 million in Pinellas County and $105 million in the regional economy. The visitors not only hailed from this area but also came from more than 50 countries.
“All eyes were on St. Pete a year ago,” said Cindy Cockburn, spokeswoman for the museum. “That has just snowballed across the globe.”
Cockburn said a heavy international media blitz helped push attendance figures.
“We’ve had media from countries like Korea, Japan, Australia and Brazil featuring the museum in print and television,” she added. The Dalí “has put St. Pete on the map in the art world. People are not coming here just for the beaches.”
This fall, Hine said, the museum will host its first major exhibit with the works of Koons, who will visit the museum and give a lecture. Koons, 56, is an American artist best known for his reproductions of banal objects — such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces. One of his pieces, “Balloon Flower,” sold in June 2008 at Christie’s in London for $25.7 million.
Koons’ pieces, including “Waterfall,” “Sacred Heart” and “Hanging Heart,” will go on display in the Hough Wing in October.
Next year, the museum will host works from the great Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, and in 2014 it will exhibit works by Picasso, some of which have never been seen in Florida, Cockburn said.
During Wednesday’s celebration, Hine announced a new conservation program for the museum’s masterwork that will allow visitors to see how paintings are cleaned and conserved.
Wednesday’s anniversary fete included a Salvador Dalí look-like who rappelled from the museum’s ceiling to the floor and a cake in the shape of the artist’s iconic mustache.
