The Official Website of the Louvre: my first step in examining how the role of the public is felt in major art museums.
If you navigate into the ‘About the Lourve’ the first link takes you to an overview of the museum’s goals and their feelings on their responsibilities as an institution. The Lourve is to be “a 21st century museum rooted in 200 years of innovation.” The Lourve’s accessibility and universal appeal is stressed as well as their goal to encourage the attendance of people who think museums are ‘not for them.’
There is then a link called Audience Development that is particularly relevant to how they are structuring the museum to it’s current and future audiences. An interesting claim is made on this page that museums have been interested in their audience for 10 years, only 10 years. They feel the museum has a responsibility to act as ‘Mediator’ between art and its viewers. They give out the here as well: an average of 5.7 million visitors a year, two thirds of which are non-French, and 52% of which are first-time visitors. As you can imagine, this page goes on to discuss the need for ‘second-time visits’ as well as the need to attract local visitors who are less likely to want to fight the crowds to see the museum.
The site then talks of how the Louvre needs to shift from the image of being a monumental institution or an entity in itself, to being more simply an institution that presents great works of art to the public. They believe this is necessary to ‘combat the affects of social exclusion.’
Also included on the site is a detailed history by year, a particular link for young people (as they believe young people to be one of their priorities), specific links for professionals, virtual museum tours, etc. Overall an impressive site that is in line with the Louvre’s impressive international stature.