When Tate Modern announced a major exhibition devoted to Frida Kahlo, few doubted it would be popular. The Mexican artist has become one of the most recognisable cultural figures in the world, with her image adorning everything from tote bags to T-shirts.
But even Tate was unprepared for the scale of demand. The gallery has said that more than 41,000 tickets have already been sold for Frida: The Making of an Icon, which opens on 25 June, making it the highest pre-selling exhibition in Tate’s history and surpassing the previous record of 32,000 advance sales for David Hockney in 2017.
“We’re pretty blown away by it,” Catherine Wood, Tate Modern’s interim director, told the Guardian.
The enthusiasm surrounding Kahlo is not an isolated phenomenon. With the British Museum preparing for the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry, and major galleries lining up exhibitions devoted to artists including Monet, Hockney, Renoir and Nan Goldin, Britain’s museums appear to be witnessing a resurgence of the blockbuster exhibition – despite fears that the pandemic had fundamentally altered audience habits.
“I do think predictions about the decline of the blockbuster have been proved wrong,” said Wood. “We think of them as trust builders, so that audiences will also come into our free displays and discover amazing artists they might not know. We always try to think about how we can curate these shows in ways that speak to the next generation and contemporary issues.”
The Bayeux Tapestry, which goes on display in London from 10 September, is expected to rank among the most in-demand exhibitions in the British Museum’s history, with the museum already describing it as its “exhibition of the century”.
Demand for pre-sale tickets was so high this week that members faced hours-long queues and the museum’s website crashed, prompting comparisons on social media to the scramble for Glastonbury tickets.
A spokesperson for the British Museum said it had been “the most popular first day of sales for any exhibition mounted by the museum”.
At the National Gallery, a recent Van Gogh exhibition became the institution’s most popular ticketed exhibition ever. The show attracted 334,589 visits and remained open through the night on its final weekend to accommodate demand.
Museums increasingly believe that the appeal of major exhibitions extends beyond the artists themselves. In an age of streaming, social media and digital reproduction, institutions say visitors are placing enormous value on seeing original works in person.
“You can find images of Frida online or in books, but people want to be in the room with the original painting that this person made,” said Wood. “Humans like rituals and being part of something collective, and today there are very few points of not just shared belief but shared cultural experience.
“Frida Kahlo represents so many things to so many different people. Her feminism, her gender-fluid identity, her love lives with men and women, her boldness in exposing her disability and the way she styled herself. Her story resonates with so many different people’s life experiences.”
Kahlo’s continued popularity, Wood added, also reflects a broader search for figures who appear authentic in an era of political and cultural uncertainty.
“People are looking for forms of continuity and stability, for figures who are bold in owning their own life experience. Although her life had lots of trauma and disappointments, she showed a way to live and survive and thrive.”
The National Gallery echoed that view, saying it would be “encouraging” to think the popularity of major exhibitions reflected a deeper public hunger for communal cultural experiences.
Museums remain under pressure from rising costs and constrained public funding, making successful exhibitions increasingly important sources of income and membership growth.
“We’re all facing widely reported financial challenges, therefore exhibitions of all types, along with many other initiatives, are important to us all,” a National Gallery spokesperson said.
“Absolutely,” said Wood when asked whether major exhibitions were important to Tate’s finances. “Half of our audience are members, and their loyalty is so important to the economy of Tate.”
There is even a bit of “healthy competition” among galleries competing for audiences for blockbuster exhibitions. “The more great shows we all do, the more it enlarges the audience for art,” Wood continued.
Tate’s other crowd-pullers include its current Tracey Emin exhibition, A Second Life, which has attracted 234,000 visitors since it opened in February and still has more than two months to run. “Tracey Emin has way exceeded what we predicted in terms of visitor numbers. Like Frida, people have been really moved by the raw honesty of her work.”
Tate also has high hopes for a forthcoming exhibition on the art and fashion of the 90s – curated by former Vogue editor Edward Enninful – which it expects will appeal to a broad range of audiences increasingly nostalgic for our last “offline” era when it opens in October.
Yet the resurgence of the blockbuster is taking place against a more complicated backdrop. Overall visitor numbers across Britain’s attractions remain below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that while audiences may not have fully returned, they are increasingly willing to turn out for major cultural events.
Bernard Donoghue, the director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, said visitor numbers to its members were still 7% below 2019 levels.
“The post-pandemic recovery has still not been fully achieved,” he said. “But there is room for optimism. In the years immediately after lockdown, there was understandable caution about returning to crowded spaces. Now, the fear of missing out is back with a vengeance.
“We’ve seen the extraordinary success of Van Gogh at the National Gallery, Marie Antoinette at the V&A and Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King’s Gallery, which sold out and has now been extended due to unprecedented demand.
“It shows that the right story, told well and capturing the public imagination, can electrify and excite audiences.”