The Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Expression announced this week that it would be permanently closing its groundbreaking “Hands-On Heritage” exhibit after just three days, following what curators are calling “an unprecedented level of enthusiastic visitor engagement.”
The interactive display, which invited patrons to physically handle reproductions of famous artworks, resulted in 847 separate incidents including fingerprint smudges, attempted taste-testing of bronze sculptures, and one visitor who tried to fold Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” into a paper airplane. Museum security reported that within the first hour of opening, someone had successfully taught the Mona Lisa to play patty-cake.
“We wanted to break down the traditional barriers between art and audience,” explained Dr. Margaret Thornfield, the museum’s Chief Curator of Public Interaction. “What we didn’t anticipate was that people would interpret ‘interactive’ to mean they could redecorate Picasso’s work with their own creative additions, including what appears to be a mustache drawn in permanent marker on ‘Guernica.'”
The exhibit’s premature closure came after a group of kindergarteners on a field trip successfully convinced Rodin’s “The Thinker” to participate in a game of musical chairs, resulting in what witnesses described as “the most philosophically engaged statue-based conga line in art history.” The museum has announced that future interactive exhibits will be limited to digital displays viewed from behind reinforced glass barriers.
