It’s old hat by now in the museum world that if you want to lure in visitors, you need to offer them more than just an opportunity to look at art. (Never minding for a moment that the whole point of art museums is to look at art.)
Beyond its otherwise energetic slate of events, which includes regular gallery talks and family-oriented arts activities, St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts also hosts a summer series of Friday night jazz concerts for $15 ($10 for MFA members), a ticket price that includes admission to the Hazel Hough galleries. This Friday, July 16, showcases the Nat Bailey Trio, headed by Bailey on guitar with Carlos Marchena on keyboard and Martin Dalmasi on sax. The series continues through Aug. 27 with the Stolen Idols, Larry Camp Quartet and the Jim Morey Band; go to fine-arts.org for more information.
To my thinking, Thursday evenings at Sono Café — when $5 glasses of wine flow freely, the café’s menu of paninis and salads are two-for-one, and museum admission from 5 to 9 p.m. is “pay what you will” thanks to Wachovia Wells Fargo — are an unbeatable reason to visit the Tampa Museum of Art. But the more athletically inclined may find greater enticement in Saturday morning yoga sessions, led amidst works of art by Laura Tillinghast of Inspire Yoga; while film buffs may prefer the Gasparilla Film Festival’s Global Lens film series, held every second Thursday of the month at the TMA. For more information, go to tampamuseum.org.
Not to be outdone, the Dalí Museum boasts a film series — this week’s offering is The World of Tomorrow, a documentary about the 1939 World’s Fair, the site of artist Salvador Dalí’s titillating Dream of Venus installation featuring topless mermaids — on Thurs., July 15; a happy hour music event (featuring the swingin’ Nate Najar Trio) on Fri., July 16; and Sunday yoga classes beginning in August. Take that, other, non-surrealist art museums! For more information, go to salvadordalimuseum.org.
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.