In one of the first TikTok videos of Italy’s revered Uffizi Gallery’s account, a digitally animated Madonna in Michelangelo’s Tondo Doni painting raises and lowers baby Jesus as though doing weights. The caption, in Italian, reads, “When you’re in quarantine and you don’t have workout equipment.” In another, Botticelli’s Venus is dressed in head-to-toe PPE to illustrate the “Spring/summer 2020: Corona look”. The Italian gallery’s comic, irreverent videos have earned it over 82,000 followers on the video-sharing site. And other museums and galleries are also demonstrating their prowess with the latest technology trend.
Museums on TikTok
Over the last year, there has been a steady increase in TikTok users interested in art and culture content. The hashtags #FineArt, #ArtHistory and #ArtOnTikTok now receive around 2 billion views a month globally. That’s a 3,000% increase over the last year.
One of the first galleries to make a name for itself on TikTok was the less well-known Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, England. It may not have the footfall of Italy’s Uffizi Gallery, but it’s leagues ahead on TikTok with 1.1 million followers. Last year, it nabbed a place in the top 100 TikTok accounts in the UK. The open-air museum is dedicated to Britain’s early industrial history. It has received a smattering of awards for its mine shafts, lime kiln and postwar trolley buses.
But its TikTok videos are proving to be the museum’s greatest hit at the moment. Most feature actors in historic dress in comic skits about wartime life or parodying TikTok trends. One of the most popular videos, with 3.4 million views, presents the various roles of women during WWII with a pop music soundtrack. In another, a wife prepares lunch for her husband, 1988 style. Narrated in a Black Country accent, she cooks tripe and onions and wraps up sugar, tea and condensed milk in a piece of newspaper.
@blackcountrylivingmuseum tbf it wasn’t a lot of food #ww2 #rationing #history #1940s
♬ Kiss Me More (feat. SZA) – Doja Cat
Virtual Visits
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, social media sites like TikTok have become ways to visit museums virtually. Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum opened an account last April and has since racked up 97,400 followers. As well as riffs on challenges that go viral on the site, the museum gives short art historical descriptions of artworks in the collection, offers live tours and re-enacts famous masterpieces. In one video, their iconic self-portrait of Rembrandt even comes to life.
The Rijksmuseum hopes TikTok can be an educational tool. Nanet Beumer, who leads the museum’s digital department, said, “We usually have a lot of school classes visiting. We want to see if we can use TikTok to interact with younger visitors in the museum in a completely different way, for example, by enabling them to create content for our TikTok channel.”
Also pushing the educational potential is Berlin’s Natural History Museum. The museum uses sensationalism — loud music, special effects and filters — to get users’ attention and then recounts the curious stories behind objects in its collection. The videos feature museum guides talking about rampaging elephants and the hunting prowess of seemingly innocuous owls.
Engaging Young People
With the platform attracting mainly young users — the majority under 25 years old — some museum directors are seeing TikTok as a way to foster engagement from an often disinterested demographic. Last year, Italian influencer Chiara Ferragni shared her Uffizi Gallery visit on social media. Afterward, the museum recorded a steady growth over the following months of visitors aged under 25. As such, director Eike Schmidt has pushed the gallery’s own TikTok account. Schmidt said the resulting data showed a “long-lasting and wide-ranging development”.
The Uffizi Gallery participated in a worldwide TikTok event to celebrate International Museum Day in May this year. Along with 23 other cultural institutions in 12 different countries, the gallery joined the #MuseumMoment marathon. Passing from one museum to another each hour, it acted as a kind of cultural relay race around the world.
Head of Content and TikTok Partnership Normanno Pisan commented, “TikTok is part of the evolution of contemporary culture, a place full of stimuli and creativity where you can listen, learn and express yourself in an authentic way.” He added that museums and galleries are “digitally opening their doors to their priceless treasures” and connecting “in an unprecedented way with a heterogeneous and global audience.”
