Contributing up to as much as a quarter of museum revenue, gift shops can be crucial to a museum’s bottom line, but their contributions aren’t only economic. These unique retail spaces help educate visitors, build the museum’s brand, and work to highlight — and sometimes even influence — the aspects of art the institution views as important.[...]
That’s because the same people responsible for putting together exhibitions have a say in what makes it onto store shelves. On a practical branding level, the museum’s curatorial team helps store buyers make sure colors are correct in reproductions and checks out copyrights, which can sometimes be impossible or overly expensive to secure.[...]
These curatorial collaborations ensure that whether the store is commissioning its own products, working with brands, or buying them from the trade, their pieces connect directly or thematically to the collection — and many museums underscore that relationship by including information in product displays or packing about the artworks that inspired them. [...]
Because beyond all the responsibility that art museum stores have to financially contribute to their institution and help curators further communicate their vision, Tudor says stores are just a great way to keep visitors hanging around a little longer and interacting with the art. That’s because, no matter how intimidating people might find museums or how much (or little) they like the artworks themselves, there’s always one guarantee.
No comments:
Post a Comment