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# Museum Places Donation Box Next to Sculpture to Help Them Buy It
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/mfa-chihuly-donation-plea/
- Published: 2011-07-26T20:00:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:02:42.000Z
- Description: Boston's Museum of Fine Art is asking visitors to donate so they can add the 42-foot-high, 10,000 pound, 2,400 piece "Lime Green Icicle Tower" sculpture that is a highlight of the current Dale Chihuly show.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Dale Chihuly, MFA Boston, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/07/w.jpg)

Dale Chihuly's "Lime Green Icicle Tower" at the MFA is the subject of a donation plea to visitors. (image via Hyperallergic)

You have to give Boston’s Museum of Fine Art a gold star for trying something out of the ordinary. The institution is asking visitors, who are supposedly goo goo ga ga over a large work by glass artist Dale Chihuly to donate money via SMS, online or any way they want to so that the venerable New England museum can add the 42-foot-high, 10,000 pound, 2,400 piece “Lime Green Icicle Tower” sculpture to their permanent collection. The art work is a highlight of the MFA’s current Dale Chihuly show.

From the [*Boston Globe*](http://www.boston.com/ae/theater%5Farts/articles/2011/07/26/mfa%5Ftakes%5Fup%5Fcollection%5Fto%5Fbuy%5Fchihuly%5Fpiece/?ref=hyperallergic.com):

> The MFA has launched a campaign to raise more than $1 million to buy the 42-foot-tall “Lime Green Icicle Tower’’ … The public contributions will be matched by those of a group of longtime MFA donors.  
>  
> It is fairly standard, these days, for a museum to acquire a work from an artist who has been featured in a solo exhibition. But typically, deep-pocketed donors are sought to make those purchases. The MFA’s public appeal includes, for the first time, a chance for museum visitors to give online and by texting on their phones – people can text the word TOWER to 50555, then reply to the follow-up message “To confirm your $10 donation to MFA Boston, reply with the word YES.’’

And my favorite:

> The MFA quietly began the campaign last week by adding a donation box next to the piece …

I do like the idea of harnessing the power of the art public to help buy a work that many people seem to be passionate about rather that asking a single trustee to purchase it.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the show and its popularity with the Boston art crowd:

> This week, attendance surpassed 320,000, meaning that when Chihuly closes Aug. 7, it will be at least the fifth-most-visited MFA exhibit of all time, behind just *Monet in the 20th Century*, *Monet in the ’90s*,’ *Renoir,* and *Pompeii 79 A.D*., which were held in 1999, 1990, 1986, and 1978, respectively.

Our review of the Dale Chihuly show is [here](https://hyperallergic.com/dale-chihuly-retrospective/) and the reviewer called the “Lime Green Icicle Tower” “pretty incredible. The show closes on August 7.

*Homepage image via mfa.org*