“In a moment when we are fighting an affordability crisis in this city - we are the most expensive city in the United States of America - we know that we are fighting for more than just the ability to afford our own homes, or to afford the bus that we ride that gets us to this museum. We are also fighting for the ability to afford joy, and leisure, and rest, and going to the museum. I so appreciate that this is the free event for each and every person that wants to come, and that this is a museum that says, “pay as you wish” for anyone who walks through these doors.” —Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Saturday, Feb 7, 2026, at the Brooklyn Museum (who went on to thank the workers of the museum, and the unions that represent them)
Many museums open their doors for a “First Saturday,” a “Night Out,” “Jazz Night,” or “Free-For-All,” The Brooklyn Museum started opening its doors to engage the community on “First Saturdays” 28 years ago. 10,000 visitors across six hours of dancing, eating and drinking, shopping from local venders, then wandering the galleries of art, experiencing special exhibitions and the museum’s permanent collection. Deepening relationships on the dance floor and the gallery walls.
Church. Friday Night Lights football. July 4th fireworks. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Over-the-air television, at least for now. Free access to cultural and community events are still essential to our culture, but also increasingly sponsored, with tiered access or interrupted by advertising, the experience diluted. The Oscars will go to YouTube in 2029, and how long before they’re behind a pay wall? When will CNN become a separate subscription to service the debt of the new WB/Paramount? Every private equity deal results in a demand for more revenue and profit. Advertising that makes things “free” has diminishing returns. As popular culture becomes less accessible to the people, what about “fine” art, an increasingly privileged experience?
For me, the opposite of free and open access might be the Louis Vuitton museum in Paris, which mounts spectacular career-spanning exhibitions of popular artists, sometimes in dual juxtaposition. I’ve seen Basquiat and Warhol, Monet and Mitchell, but it was the loan from the Courtauld Collection that became the most memorable for the fact that I can’t remember a single work. After paying 16 euros, the galleries were so crowded that it was impossible to get close, or even see, the art. Why would a wealthy, endowed museum need to maximize revenue? I vowed not to return and support them, but then colleagues at Christie’s Paris offered a one-hour early entry to the comprehensive and extravagant Mark Rothko exhibit in 2023. I found myself alone in a gallery, surrounded by some of his most accomplished series of works, and tears formed from the mesmerizing experience of staring at even a single work without the distraction of human sound, presence or peripheral movement.
Please read the rest of Daniel Edelman’s piece on The Unibrow’s Substack and subscribe.
