Museum Musings

One Price Doesn't Fit All

You learn a lot wandering a great museum, like the Chicago Art Institute.

Not necessarily anything about art -- but a lot, nonetheless.

Here's what I scribbled killing a few hours there Sat:

--Maybe we've got it all wrong using the income tax code as a tool for addressing disparities in wealth. The other way to do it is differential pricing.

That's certainly what the Art Institute seems to be doing.

I counted at least five different admission prices, depending on whether you are an Adult, Senior, Child, Member, or Patron.

How much more difficult would it be to add another 4-5 categories that varied with your income bracket? Don't airlines effectively already do that, with their variable fares, "sales" that last a day (or a few hours), etc.?

--The names I found most interesting weren't Renoir, Monet, and Degas -- but Searle, Pritzker and Grainger. The latter were all major benefactors of the museum -- and namesakes for its various wings and collections.

Which suggests that the best way to learn a city's business movers and shakers -- at least historically -- isn't to read the business section, but to wander its cultural institutions.

--Doctors' office have waiting rooms; why not museums?

Actually, I'd suggest three different waiting rooms: one with a flat screen TV with a football game on; another with comfortable chairs and couches for sleeping; and a third stocked with "guy" reading material (business and sports periodicals).

Judging from the demographics I saw Saturday (3:1 women to men ratio), all three would have been filled to capacity.

--As for the museum . . . I actually did enjoy many of the famous pieces on display. In many cases, what struck me was the actual scale of the painting: you can't tell from a picture in an art book that the painting is 8 feet across, and commands the room it occupies.

Next: more Twin Cities real estate posts!