Banksy in world top 30 exhibitions list

Banksy has made it into a "top 30" league table of global exhibition and museum attendance figures.

The graffiti artist pulled in almost 4,000 visitors a day to the Banksy vs Bristol Museum event at the City Museum and Art Gallery last summer.

The Art Newspaper, which carried out the poll, said it was the first time the Bristol museum had been ranked in its annual survey.

It was second out of the UK venues and 30th worldwide.

The event, which was shrouded in secrecy, beat blockbuster exhibitions like that of Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy last autumn.

Charles Saatchi's new London gallery sat in first place out of the UK attractions in the global survey and came 28th overall.

The Saatchi Gallery's exhibition - The Revolution Continues: New Art from China, which opened in October 2008 - drew more than 4,100 daily visitors.

Japan's museums dominated The Art Newspaper's 15th annual survey of daily attendance figures, with three Tokyo venues and one in Nara taking the top four places.

The Tokyo National Museum topped the list, with almost 16,000 people a day attending one of its exhibitions last year.

It displayed Ashura, one of the nation's best-known Buddhist statues, along with other treasures from the Kohfukuji temple, Nara.

In second place was the Nara National Museum, which attracted almost 15,000 visitors a day to see Shoso-in treasures, which included objects belonging to the Emperor Shomu.

Paris's Louvre topped the overall attendance list for 2009, with a total of 8.5 million visitors.

The British Museum in London came second with more than 5.5 million people flocking in.

London's National Gallery and Tate Modern also featured in the top 10, both drawing more than 4.7 million visitors.

The Saatchi Gallery occupied both first and second place in The Art Newspaper's London top 10.

While The Revolution Continues came out top, an exhibition inspired by the Middle East came second, with almost 4,000 visitors a day.

Kapoor's much-lauded exhibition, which sent people flocking to see red wax being fired out of a cannon, was in third place in the London list with more than 3,600 visitors daily.

The Art Newspaper said figures may be out by a margin of up to two per cent but as the same margin applied to all, the list represents a "fair comparison".