How to Find a Date at an Art Museum

Image via Complex Original

Thanks to our easy-to-use “smart” phones, we can capture every moment of our lives with one touch of a button. You can quickly get a photo of yourself with a cropped Pablo Picasso in the background, but you can't really see the Picasso, so basically you just have another selfie.

So, whats the perfect way to get the attention of the one you have your eye on across the room? Ask them to take a picture of you with your favorite piece in the museum without being overtly corny about it. Not all museums allow photos with flash, but a favor as simple as asking someone to take your photo is enough to initiate a conversation.

If there's one thing you should know about the art world, it's that artists and non-artists alike appreciate art, but in different forms. Because art is considered a luxurious commodity, those who understand the art world, as well as those who pretend to know about the art world, come together to make up what types of men and women one can typically find in an art museum.

Although you may know the exact date Monet painted his water lilies or every detail on the erotic relationship between Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, it's important to note that not everyone who goes to an art museum does.

When initiating conversation, it's best to remember the context that the art world is made up of a bunch of randos who make art, know art, or just like to point at art and say, “I don't get it.” Across the museum's Modern Art gallery, you have your eye on the cutie decoding Kandinsky's The Garden of Love, who obviously doesn't understand why it's called The Garden of Love, because it doesn't look like a garden and doesn't look like love…yet.

This is your chance. If you're an artist or art historian, or just someone who has way too much time on their hands and researches modern art in their spare time, then take the opportunity to initiate conversation by explaining the art. One conversation can lead to another, and we're sure he/she will be impressed by your art knowledge.

In college, I'd find myself going to the MoMA, sprawling across the museum floor with my sketchbook and shitty compressed charcoal while drawing inspiration from other artists in the museum. If you're an artist and trying to score a date at an art museum, lingering in a productive way doesn't hurt, and this technique works.

There's something mysterious about the art world that intrigues both men and women and attracts them to an artist. Art, which is conversation in itself (something a professor might have told you in college), is the perfect excuse to score a date in an art museum.

So, if you are one of those “I'm going to show off and draw in a museum” types, then it's your lucky day. One of the perks of being in an art museum is that you may not be the only attention-seeking starving artist lingering the Warhol exhibition, drawing pop art (who draws pop art anyway?). Your match made in heaven may also be an artist and may end up giving you a critique on your shitty charcoal museum drawing (or maybe it's not shitty), rather than initiating beat-around-the-bush type conversation. Instead of taking the critique offensively, use this criticism as a way into flirtation about the art world.

You've finally got his or her attention, and you're both walking side-by-side chatting about medieval archetypes and polychromy. And the fact that he or she even knows what polychrome art is has your mind actually blown.

However, you notice their pace is off. It seems as if their knowledge of the art world doesn't come from a passion for it, but rather a list of art vocabulary that came from a forced art history course in college. They are rushing past the paintings and marble Roman sculptures who seem to have all lost their genitals in their move from Europe to the Met Museum, and it's might be turning the switch off. You've come to the museum for one reason: to look at art. So, here's the number one rule for looking at artwork: don't rush it. There's nothing more frustrating than walking through a museum with someone who would rather get a hotdog from the street cart outside than spend time looking at the artwork with you.

When you go to a museum, it's natural and makes sense that you are there to look at art. However, if you're looking to make this museum trip your first date with the one you've had your eyes on in the Renaissance gallery, it's important that you take the time to get to know them, rather than intimidate yourself with the Venus on the wall. Steer clear of the oversized headphones and automated “tour guides,” as you want to at least act like you know about art, even if you don't.

And if you do know about the art world, don't literally give the tour yourself. Leave that job to the guides who are being paid for it. It can be frustrating to hold back showing off your knowledge, but in this case, zip your lips and throw away the key. This is a date, not a school museum trip.

Although one day in an art museum may not seem like enough time, a maximum of two hours spent wandering the art-filled facade is more than enough (at least when you're “on a date” or on the look-out). Art museums, as fulfilling as they are, can make a person restless or even bored after a certain amount of time. After a certain amount of time passes, be ready to move on.

Fortunately, every art museum has a museum cafe, making it easy to weld your conversation about mid-century clown paintings into becoming a date. Many art museum cafes serve alcohol, which is the perfect opportunity to loosen up the conversation.

Nothing says “date me, I'm artsy” like finding your match-made-in-an-art-museum at the gift shop. It's essentially impossible to walk in to or out of an art museum without making a pit-stop in the gift shop. Chock-full of quirky art trinkets and art text books that are bound to blow inspiration out of your mind, art museum gift shops are a go-to location when finding a date at an art museum. You can tell a lot about a person from the nooks and crannies they choose to buy or are persuing. If you, by fate, end up chatting over a particular book or postcard in the gift shop, consider buying it for them. Sublime closing move.

Don't be an art narcissist. Putting yourself “out there” doesn't mean you have to flaunt your knowledge of the art world so it seems condescending. Instead, naturally exude your knowledge of the art world in a respectful manner. No one wants to hold a conversation with someone who does all the talking, examining, and deciphering of a painting. Instead, if you want to make this your first date, play on the other person's words and thoughts about the art and turn it into a dialogue.