Museum Hack's Tasting-Menu Approach to the Art Museum Tour

 

Every museum tour should start with a huddle break.

 

That's what Mark Rosen, one of the guides behind the upstart group Museum Hack, believes. On a recent Sunday, he began a tour in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Great Hall by urging his nine guests to form a tight circle, hands in the center, and on the count of three, shout: "MUUUUSEUM!"

 

"There is a thing called 'museum fatigue.' That's a real problem," he said, before zipping off toward the European Arts wing. "We want you to be engaged in the way you typically aren't, physically, in a museum."

 

 

The huddle break is what Mr. Rosen refers to as a "fatigue fighter," just one of several components to a Museum Hack tour. The four-month-old startup, which is not affiliated with the Met, leads its guests through two-hour, $39 tours of the museum, usually on Fridays and weekends,and instead of focusing on specific areas or crash-course overviews, it gravitates to overlooked pieces in the collection or intriguing facts about the more celebrated ones. To say it is an unconventional museum-going experience would be like calling the Met a good place to see old paintings.

 

"You typically don't go to a fancy restaurant, study the menu for three seconds, order everything, gorge yourself and roll out the door," Mr. Rosen said to his Sunday-morning charges. "Yet almost everybody comes here, tries to see everything in four hours or less, Instagrams the hell out of the place and leaves, remembering nothing." Drawing a line between art appreciation and modern-day foodie culture, he likened Museum Hack to his version of a tasting menu.

 

And like any talented chef who wants to impress his diners with an experience they'll remember long after the check is paid, Mr. Rosen and Museum Hack's founder, Nick Gray, currently the only guides, customize their tours according to their guests' museum diets: who's been to the Met before, who's a first-timer, and their likes and dislikes.

 

The museum knows about and doesn't object to Museum Hack, though Harold Holzer, the Met's senior vice president of public affairs, noted that it offers some 140 official tours a week, "and they're free with admission," he said.

 

Ultimately, Mr. Holzer said, he and Mr. Gray share the same philosophy. "The main message is the Met is open to everyone."

 

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