Contemporary art dominates US museums, our visitor surveys confirm

Leading US museums, many with collections that span centuries if not millennia, now devote nearly half of their temporary exhibitions to shows of contemporary art, The Art Newspapers annual surveys reveal. More than 1,000 exhibitions44% of the more than 2,300 shows organised by 29 major US museums between 2007 and 2015were dedicated to the work of artists active after 1970.
It was not always this way. Just 20 years ago, Impressionism was king; no contemporary shows cracked the top ten most visi