Against the odds, Tel Aviv Museum of Art makes world’s top 100 for visits

Institution is ranked 77 globally, based on number of visitors in 2025, despite being closed for many days because of security situation

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art has been included in the list of the world’s top 100 most visited art museums of the past year.

The museum was ranked 77th among the most popular international museums, based on the number of visitors, and is the only Israeli museum included.

The museum reported 1,000,096 visitors in 2025, a five percent decrease from the previous year, but a 24% increase from 2019.

All participating museums send the relevant visitor data to The Art Newspaper, the publication that publishes the annual ranking.

It is the eighth time that the Tel Aviv Museum of Art has been included in the listing. It made the list in recent years, despite the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, and the war in Gaza.

The top 20 most visited museums include the Louvre at number one, along with Rome’s Vatican Museums, London’s British Museum and National Gallery, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris’s Musee d’Orsay and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

“Against all odds, and despite the museum being closed for many days due to the security situation, we succeeded over the past year in presenting excellent exhibitions of art from Israel and around the world, attracting large audiences,” said Tel Aviv Museum of Art Director Tania Coen-Uzielli.

“In the wake of the war, the Tel Aviv Museum has become a cultural anchor for Israeli society,” she said. “We continue to respond and act in accordance with the changing reality.”

Coen-Uzielli thanked her staff, the Israeli art community, and the general public for choosing to visit the museum and for taking an active part in cultural life, even during complex and challenging times.

During the last two and a half years of war, the museum has moved its artworks to safekeeping four times. The plaza outside the museum was temporarily renamed Hostages Square and was the scene of numerous rallies and events for the hostages in Gaza.

Days after October 7, 2023, the museum, like others around Israel, discovered that all international projects and collaborations with Israeli art institutions were on hold, first because of the war and then because of pro-Palestinian cultural boycotts aimed at isolating the country.

Still, said Coen-Uzielli, the museum staff succeeded in rethinking exhibitions of art from Israel and the globe, collaborating with music festivals, theater productions, and other performances to fill the halls.