SMART & FUNNY: HOW TO MAKE MUSEUMS PEE-YOUR-PANTS FUNNY

Museums are the best place in the world to expand your horizons beyond the day-to-day culture and city artifacts that you can discover via Pokémon Go. They’re the #1 place to explore centuries of history, stories, beautiful art, and societal changes. They’re also my favorite place to get a little goofy with friends.

Whether you’re traipsing through the Louvre, your city’s modern art museum, or at your local community collection, here are a few of my (and my friends!) favorite ways to laugh and learn:

1. INVENT AN ART HISTORIAN PERSONA

Do your best impression of a snooty art curator/historian type. (No offense if you’re actually a snooty art curator-historian IRL, but everybody’s got to appreciate satire, right?!) A little inspo to channel your inner art critic… What does that particular shade of yellow in that afternoon haystack mean ? Was it actually inspired by the artist’s deep love for the famed explorer Bart Simpson? Use your imagination and commit to the bit.

2. DRESS TO THE THEME

Going to a black and white photography exhibit? Put on your best greyscale outfit! Going to see a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit? Don your fave floral dress and a flower crown! Pop art? Dress up as a Lichtenstein!

3. ART IMITATES ART

Now, this one is my favorite. It brings back one my favorite memories with my best friend (my sister!) where we reenacted artwork all through the Louvre in Paris – from statues to paintings! We laughed our way through one of the most prestigious museums in the world. While art can be inspiring, appreciating it doesn’t have to be stiff… unless you’re impersonating a statue, of course.

4. ART HUNT

Create a DIY scavenger hunt list! Statue of a naked dude? ✅ Group of 5+ cherubs? ✅ Still life that you’d actually see in your own home? ✅ Painting of a rainbow? ✅ Museum patron with a fanny pack, Hawaiian shirt, AND socks with sandals? ✅ Winner buys the post-museum lunch. May the keenest eye win!

However you decide to do it, vina dates at the museum are a creative way to spend your Saturday. It makes things extra easy when you run out of/get tired of those “getting-to-know-you” questions. Just point at a work of art and ask her what she thinks of it.