Big cost to market high-stakes art exhibit

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Museum of Fine Arts spending $100,000 to promote 'Mexican Modern'

Art: State hires L.A.-based publicist for exhibit

A pair of yellow-and-red panels displaying an image of Diego Rivera's painting Vendedora de Pinole (The Pinole Vender) greet passengers arriving in the baggage area of Albuquerque International Sunport. The signs advertise "important works by Rivera, Kahlo, Orozco, Siqueiros, and more" in an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe.

While driving north, visitors might notice a billboard for the same show featuring Mara Izquierdo's Mujer Oaxaquena (Woman of Oaxaca). If they check into a Santa Fe motel that uses electronic keys, the card might be decorated with an image of Emilio Baz Viaud's El Peluquero Zurdo. Museum patrons with these key cards receive a $3 discount on four-day passes to Santa Fe's four state- owned museums.

The signs, billboards and key passes are just a small part of a major marketing campaign for "Mexican Modern," an exhibit of paintings and photographs from private collections and state-owned museums in Mexico that opened Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts. State culture officials are hoping the show will be this season's "Nicholas & Alexandra," an exhibit of czarist family objects that set a record attendance figure -- 71,285 -- at the MFA in 2004.

The stakes are high. The museum, which receives no state funding for exhibits, borrowed money for "Mexican Modern" and is earmarking a third of the $300,000 budget for marketing.

In addition, the state Tourism Department hired a well-connected Los Angeles-based publicist to promote the exhibit by persuading influential publications to write about it. "Mexican Modern" has been "a priority" for the department, according to Sarah Robarts, a Uganda-born artist and interior designer who founded the public- relations firm Ballantines in 2000. She has offices in Los Angeles and Santa Fe.

Robarts began talking to newspaper and magazine writers and editors about the exhibit five months ago, when only 21 of the 87 works were confirmed. So far, she said, her efforts have lead to mentions in Conde Nast Traveler; American Artist; Albuquerque Arts; The Austin Chronicle; London-based Art Quarterly and The Washington Post.

Barbara Hagood, a former deputy director of the Museum of New Mexico, said it is not unusual for museums to hire private contractors to help market large exhibitions. The Museum of New Mexico sought outside expertise when it opened the Neutrogena Wing at the Museum of International Folk Art and when the Museum of Fine Arts launched a partnership with the new Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, she said.

But Hagood, co-founder of the nonprofit Museum Development Associates, which assists small and rural museums, pointed out the state did not hire an outside publicist for the exhibit "Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of their Own," when it ran at the MFA in 2001. That show helped set record attendance rates for three months.

DCA's Museum Services Division, which employs 10 full-time and two half-time people in marketing and outreach, handles most publicity needs.

The industry formula

recommends spending about

25 percent of an exhibition budget on marketing, Hagood said. The 2004 "Nicholas & Alexandra" exhibit at MFA had a total budget of $300,000, and $90,000 was spent on marketing. But because state museum directors are usually strapped for funds, New Mexico museums rarely approach that figure.

Large museum shows usually involve years of planning. But, MFA director Marsha Bol said, she only learned that Luis-Martn Lorano, director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Mexico, would curate a show of Mexican modernist art for her museum in late October.

Bol originally estimated the exhibit would cost $1 million, but by January, she had lowered that figure to $500,000. During the 2006 legislative session, the DCA requested a special appropriation of $500,000 for "Mexican Modern." Although that request received an executive recommendation from

Gov. Bill Richardson's office, it was defeated, and Bol pared the budget to $300,000.

To finance "Mexican Modern," Bol said, she lowered the budget from $96,000 to $80,000 for two shows featuring the art of American modernist Marsden Hartley that will open in June. And the museum entered into a legal agreement with the Museum of New Mexico Foundation for "up-front bridge funding." The museum will repay the foundation with revenues earned from a $5 admission fee for the Mexican show.

Other exhibition expenses include: shipping and insurance costs, $110,000; installation, $25,000; the catalog published by the Museum of New Mexico Press, $50,000; opening and travel expenses for invited guests from Mexico, $10,000; and educational programs, $5,000.

An exhibit that includes works by some of the same Mexican artists, running concurrently at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, was much cheaper. "Coleccin FEMSA, Una Mirada Continental" is expected to cost around $70,000, according to figures supplied by Andrew Connors, NHCC senior curator. "Coleccin FEMSA" also includes works by Kahlo, Rivera and Siquerios.

NHCC staff spent three years negotiating with FEMSA, a Mexican corporation, for the loan of art by emerging artists and established masters in its collection.

Robarts said she has placed stories about "Coleccin FEMSA" in Art Connoisseur Magazine and Culture Magazine, an online publication.

Contact Elizabeth Cook-Romero at 986-3048 or ecr@sfnewmexican.com.