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Art for heart’s sake: Museums are where singles are mingling
Date nights at the museum. Singles mixers at galleries. The art world is helping couples make a connection. Is a meet-cute just an exhibition away?
It’s a meet-cute even Nancy Meyers couldn’t have dreamed up. Local man, fed up of the shallow pickings on Tinder, heads to the museum to enjoy their latest exhibition in peace. Meanwhile, local woman, out with her girl gang, is there too. Their eyes don’t meet. Instead, both of them are transfixed by a single canvas. They’re both drawn to the same exhibits in the gallery. And, hello, they’ve both signed up for the 5pm watercolours workshop. By sunset, they’ve painted their hearts out, been intellectually stimulated and vulnerable in a way few people are with strangers. It’s a match made in paint.
Can the art world really play Cupid? There are dates aplenty at Mumbai’s popular Art Night Thursday events, when galleries stay open late and when art-walk groups mingle at a show opening over wine and snacks. Young people thronged the recent Pop: Fame, Love, Power show at Mumbai’s Nita Ambani Cultural Centre. The polarising exhibition had plenty for strangers to rant or bond over. “OMG! Is the Keith Haring drawing on your T-shirt the same one as in the show?” “Why is walking through a room full of helium-filled silver pillows considered art?”
Museums are paying attention. For Valentine’s Day, Kamini Sawhney, director of Bengaluru’s new Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) announced special promotions for couples. Twosomes could book private guided tours and get special discounts at the al fresco restaurant. “Why not?” Sawhney asks. “Art brings people together. It can be a tool to stimulate creativity and critical inquiry and communicate. Why can’t it be a space and a tool for finding a date? Even outside of Valentine’s Day, we encourage people to come on art dates at MAP.”
In Delhi, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art organises date nights on request. In September 2023, a five-course meal was paired with wine and included an after-hours intimate walkthrough of their show Very Small Feelings, which showcased 43 works. The KNMA also hosts Weekends at KNMA, featuring music and poetry gigs and performing arts events. It’s where PR professional Jayati Arora, 24, met investment-banker, Gautam Garg, 24, last year. It was Garg’s first time in an art space, he was there to network for business. He ended up enjoying the performances so much that he and Arora chatted from 7pm to midnight. “We vibed instantly, and before we knew it, we were dating,” says Arora.
Museums around the world have tapped into the museum-romance vibe. In New Zealand, Auckland Museum’s annual Valentine’s Day singles event, Mingle At The Museum, sells out weeks in advance. It’s billed as an evening to meet “like-minded people as you chat over dinosaur bones”. There are drinks, a DJ, puzzle-solving contests, a romance-themed scavenger hunt and entry to special exhibits. Speed-dating sessions are held at the Birds And The Bees Room.
In New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts Date Night at The Met by staying open late on Friday and Saturday evenings. There’s live music, drinks, small bites, special programming, and a smaller, more intimate crowd than the day, so visitors can linger over the art for longer.
A shared creative experience is a great connector and an easy conversation starter, says Minhal Hasan, programme director of The Sacred Amritsar and the Kabira Festival in Varanasi. “We have had people not just laugh together but also cry together while listening to, say, a moving poem,” he adds. It brews deep connections wordlessly, it allows for smoother conversations about faith and politics than a dating-app DM does.
Dancer Priya Mehta, 35, regularly visits Mumbai’s annual Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, and has been on a few dates with someone she met at the most recent edition last month. “Meeting someone when you are surrounded by art, and finding that they respond to it the same way you do, is the best part,” she says.
