The Jewish Museum has received a one-year grant of $275,000 from The David Berg Foundation to underwrite Free Saturdays at the Museum and an expanded evaluation and assessment process.
"As the only major art museum on Museum Mile offering free admission on a weekend day, Free Saturdays allows us to welcome a broader public to the Jewish Museum, while filling a need within the Jewish community," Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director, The Jewish Museum, said. "We are grateful to The
David Berg Foundation for this generous support that ensures we can be as inclusive as possible, making the Museum accessible to all," she added.
Since its inception in 2006, the Free Saturdays program has brought over 328,000 visitors to the Museum, providing a place where people of all backgrounds can explore art and Jewish culture in a unique setting. Free Saturdays play an important role in encouraging new visitors, and deepening the Jewish Museum's connection with those already familiar with the institution.
The
David Berg Foundation grant will allow the Museum to implement an expanded formal evaluation and assessment process beyond the basic information about Free Saturdays' visitors the Museum routinely tracks. Information derived from the surveys will identify visitation patterns, visitor demographics, and best practices, and will be analyzed to help inform the program's evolution and expansion.
Over the next year, the Jewish Museum plans to launch a Free Saturdays outreach campaign targeted at younger and more diverse audiences, identify ways to deepen engagement with first-time visitors, and introduce special Jewish Sabbath-related programming. Free Saturdays will be promoted through exhibition advertising efforts including New York City subway platform ads, print ads in The New York Times and selected Jewish newspapers, as well as social media campaigns, for such upcoming exhibitions as The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film; Unorthodox;
Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History; and Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist.
The Jewish Museum is open from 11am to 5:45pm on Saturdays. In accordance with the requirements of the Jewish Sabbath, no money is exchanged, and the shops and café are closed. Exhibitions are available on a self-guided basis. There are no guided tours, audio guides, or interactive computers. Visitors may choose to download an audio guide app for smartphones. A Sabbath elevator stops automatically on each floor and comment books are removed to discourage writing in the galleries. Additionally, the children's exhibition is closed since its displays are interactive. In this way, the Free Saturdays program offers an experience which is appropriately accessible to observant Jewish visitors.
Located on Museum Mile at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, the Jewish Museum is one of the world's preeminent institutions devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary, offering intellectually engaging, educational, and provocative exhibitions and programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. The Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains a collection of over 300,000 works of art, artifacts, and broadcast media reflecting global Jewish identity, and presents a diverse schedule of internationally acclaimed temporary exhibitions.
The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, New York City. Museum hours are Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, 11am to 5:45pm; Thursday, 11am to 8pm; and Friday, 11am to 4pm. Museum admission is $15.00 for adults, $12.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for visitors 18 and under and Jewish Museum members. Admission is Pay What You Wish on Thursdays from 5pm to 8pm and free on Saturdays. For information on the Jewish Museum, the public may call 212.423.3200 or visit the website at
TheJewishMuseum.org.
Pictured: Visitors to the Jewish Museum. Photo by Will Ragozzino/SocialShutterbug.com.
