The Naked at the Art Museum Scavenger Hunt Review
Museum Scavenger Hunts Ask 'Who Killed The Curator?'
NEW YORK (AP) -- An assistant museum curator who questioned the actuality of a Leonardo da Vinci has been murdered -- just earlier he died he left a code in his engagement agenda and a cryptic trail of clues connected to secrets in works of fine art that bespeak to the killer.
Now, would-exist gumshoes must figure out what drove ane of four suspects to kill him. Was it greed? Fame? Lust? Or revenge?
That's the plot of Murder at the Met, a murder-mystery scavenger hunt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York run by Watson Adventures, a private visitor offering a series of such games at 27 museums in 7 U.S. cities.
On a contempo Sat, 40 people gathered in a basement room of the museum for the "whodunnit" challenge. Divided into x teams, they received 22 questions linked to 22 works of art, directions to specific galleries and a map. They were told that the curator'southward notes contained blanks and underlined words. Their assignment: Notice the works, fill up in the blanks and figure out what the underlined words refer to.
Each team so headed in a dissimilar management, crisscrossing dozens of galleries in an exhilarating and competitive 2-hr hunt. (Hint: Read the wall labels to make sure you're in the right place and looking at the right piece).
The winning team correctly answered the almost questions, determined the motive and decoded a set up of corresponding numbers that exposed the murderer's proper noun.
The suspects were the chief curator who was about to announce the acquisition of the rare Leonardo; a multi-millionaire who put up a large chunk of the buy coin; the expressionless curator's wife and an art dealer who specialized in Old Main paintings.
(Pitiful, no spoiler alerts here. Watson Adventures refused to let a reporter on the hunt to continue a fix of questions and answers to the mystery -- and extracted a promise from her not to reveal the killer's name.)
"I actually like the level of difficulty," said Matt Fuhrman, 22, a college graduate from Columbus, Ohio, who took part in the Met chase. "I read the Da Vinci Code and all the Dan Brownish books. Information technology was very much like the books." His squad discovered a message inscribed on the dorsum of a sculpture of the aboriginal Greek poet Sappho.
Founder Bret Watson said the company grew from his love of art, history and writing and a fascination for finding funny and bizarre details in works of art -- like a figure of a saint in a stained-glass window in the museum's Medieval gallery who's a dead ringer for Mick Jagger and whose name is St. Roch (pronounced similar the stone). The scavenger chase question for that piece of work is: "Which stained-glass pane looks like he `Tin't become no satisfaction?' "
The chase involving the murdered curator is tailored to a museum's collection and is besides offered at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Fine art Establish of Chicago, The Getty Centre in Los Angeles, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The method for cracking the code is dissimilar at each.
Other Watson Adventures hunts include "Naked at the (make full in museum name)." (And no, participants don't run effectually naked but they practice track down works of art that include randy Romans, peeping Toms, bathing beauties, sultry sirens and even a god with Venus envy). These are pun-based, requiring participants to solve stray and humorous questions.
Fuhrman's friends, Christine D'Amore, 20, of Miami, and Megan Moran, 21, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., said the chase opened their eyes to new areas of the museum.
"I've been here over 5 times, and there were places I've never been to before, rooms that I loved (like) the Egyptian tombs that I never noticed before," said D'Amore.
Moran said she liked that the scavenger hunt focuses on lesser known works.
"It's really not bad to see the intricacies of the art that doesn't become the large advertizing," she said.
The hunts are a way of getting people to "discover stuff they wouldn't commonly see because they autumn into habits and tend to go toward the biggest hits," said Watson, a former mag author and editor who creates eighty percent of the mystery hunts himself.
The groups receive specific directions, like `wait for the panthera leo, turn left, turn into the room where in that location'south a royal bed," said Watson. "Sometimes I'll make a group go through a room just so they can see it. My hope is that people get excited and after the chase, go back to parts of the museum they were intrigued by."
David Filipiak, the Met's tourism marketing managing director, said Watson Adventures ties in nicely with the museum'due south campaign to "Go Close" to the fine art.
"When you look at art, information technology tin change y'all -- not but wander, stroll by, but truly take the time to expect at the details, it tin can be a changing feel," he said.
In 2010, Watson Adventures said it brought 3,878 people to the Met, and ane,943 during the first six months of this year. That year, 4.9 1000000 people visit the museum annually, the Met said.
The hunts, averaging $35, exercise non require whatever knowledge of art and are held on select weekends each month. A pair of comfortable shoes is advisable.
A recent -- and timely addition -- is The Magician Schoolhouse Scavenger Chase, designed for Harry Potter lovers. The company describes it as a style for wizards and muggles alike to enjoy searching for art reminiscent of the Hogsworth Schoolhouse of Witchcraft and creatures as scary as the Expiry Eater and Dementor.
Watson Adventures also offers scavenger hunts in celebrated locations, like Salem, Mass., famous for its 17th-century witch trials, and New York'southward Greenwich Hamlet, a mecca for artists and innovators and the domicile of the Stonewall Inn, which became a rallying point for gay rights in June 1969.
Loring Allen, 49, a marketing executive from Rye, Northward.Y., said the Watson Adventures hunts are and then challenging and fun that she's done five, including "Naked at the Met" that a friend booked for a group of friends in town for her wedding.
"She did it as a mode to entertain people ... and have them get to know each other," Allen said. "And so I had people to talk to at the wedding."
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/museum-scavenger-hunts-ask-who-killed-the-curator/
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