My name's Nadja Hansen, I work in the editorial department as an editorial
assistant, and I'm going to be talking about Date Night at the Met.
I think it's a great date place because the art really lends itself to a
conversation. You get to learn a lot about people's opinions, or people's insights
what people are attracted to, what they're not attracted to, in a very natural
and inadvertent way. And it's an interesting way to get to know somebody
without the regular formulaic, “What do you do and how big is your family?”
When I'm first getting to know someone, it's awkward for me to go look at
a bunch of lovers running around, or more sensual or erotic art. So I
purposely avoid those galleries and I head more for works of art that
without having coupling in it or without any kind of romantic encounter,
there's a love affair that's implied. I think sometimes taking a date
to look at those types of pictures can almost be innocent, but flirtatious in a way.
There's this young girl that seems to be tuning a lute and she's leaning
forward out the window and she has this almost childlike eagerness. You
get the implication that a music teacher or musical companion that she has
more than platonic feelings for is on their way and she just can't wait for them to arrive.
There's a wonderful photograph by Alfred Stieglitz of Georgia O'Keeffe, who was not only
his lover but also he was an early champion of her art. So the way that he's almost eroticizing
her hands and that he's focusing on the instrument of her creativity has dual meanings.
I love this painting by David. It's such a wonderful depiction of mutual
admiration and respect. They were real people that lived in revolutionary France
and he was a great scientist, and she was not only his wife, but she was also his
collaborator. Unfortunately it ended like so many romances do, in
tragedy, when he was guillotined towards the end of the revolution.
I think that there's some works of art that if you're
just a real romantic, you have to seek them out.
The Storm is one of my favorite paintings in the world. And I actually had a humongous
poster of it up in my apartments, both in graduate school and in undergraduate. Looking
back on it, I kind of have to laugh because I didn't think of it at the time, but it really w
as a kind of advertisement to anybody who walked into my apartment, any potential suitor, that
I was a die-hard romantic, and if that ended up scaring anyone away, I guess I'll never know.
There are other works that are a tenth-date type of thing, like Loving Couple,
that I adore from the sweeping lines of the vegetation over them and the diagonals
and this intense stare that they're giving one another. It definitely is a very erotic scene.
Venus and Cupid by Lorenzo Lotto - I don't know if you could even call it erotic
because it's so enigmatic to modern eyes. This cupid seems to be peeing on this
Venus, and it's so beautifully painted that it's really an exquisite work of art
but the subject matter is something I would shy away from before I got to know someone.
There's some wonderful spaces in the museum that just by their very nature exude romance for me.
All of the European period rooms are so feminine and
elegant. There isn't one detail in the room that isn't
beautifully thought out, and just being in them evokes tender feelings.
I think the Metropolitan Museum is the perfect place. If you're on a
blind date, for example, and you don't know how well it's going to go,
or if you're with somebody that you just can immediately tell you have a
connection with, and you just want to talk for hours. But if you're with somebody
that you can see is losing interest in talking about art or looking at art...
That's when I use the tactic of going straight to the bar, which always is much appreciated.