It’s been almost two weeks sinceI found my last favorite Tumblr, so I guess it’s about time for a new one, isn’t it? Ladies and gents, meet Tinder Guys Posing With Art, a Tumblr by Houston-based artist Sally Glass featuring — you guessed it — guys on Tinder whose profile pictures show them posing alongside works of art. It’s somewhat similar to Tinder Girls Posing at LACMA, but it takes the idea to a new level. Posted along with each profile is a high-resolution image of the art itself, as well as its identifying information: The piece’s name, the artist behind it, and the year it was created. The end result is the ultimate high-brow/low-brow experience: Learning about art made fun and accessible by, as Glass puts it, “making fun of dudes.”
According to Glass, her use of Tinder has always been pretty casual; she did notice, however, that an awful lot of fellas have posted photos of themselves posing with — or occasionally climbing all over — art. The spark of inspiration for the resulting Tumblr was twofold: First, Glass wanted to find out what the pieces of art each guy was posing with were; and second, as she told the Daily Dot, “I thought it was funny that I’d much rather scour Tinder for photos of dudes with art than actually go on a date with one.”
The art seen in the photos represents a huge array of periods, styles, and mediums. You’ve got classic museum pieces:
More modern museum pieces:
Installations:
And street art:
A lot of the poses are jokey, but some of them are quite serious, like this one:
And this one:
Although to be honest, I think the last one makes for a terrible profile picture. A word of advice: At least let your potential dates see your face. Otherwise, you're going to be getting a lot of swipe-lefts.
I’d be curious to know whether the guys posing with all these pieces of art are aware of the names of the works and the artists who created them before snapping their shots. In some cases, I hope they do (everyone can identify The Scream on sight, right?); but I suspect a high number of them merely struck their poses for the lulz. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; in fact, it’s probably what I would do if I were actively dating. But I’d still love to know what went into deciding to use said photo as their Tinder profile pic in the first place. What are you trying to say, Tinder Guys Posing With Art? Are you showing you’re funny and down-to-earth yet still appreciative of things like fine art? We all know how much we tend to curate our image online — but this type of profile photo strikes me as a particularly calculated move.
Glass, too, looks at Tinder Guys Posing With Art as an art project in and of itself: “On a more personal level,” she said, “it’s a document of my experience as a single woman bored with the ways in which this technology is presented to me, and more bored with the options. So bored, in fact, that I’d rather make a funny archival project than find a life partner through a smartphone app.” I’m sure a lot of us can relate to the sentiment; dating sucks. And even though I am a strong proponent of online dating, there comes a point where it’s all just the same thing, over and over and over again. It’s exhausting — but at least projects like Tinder Guys Posing With Art makes it a little more bearable.
Check out the whole grand experiment on Tumblr.
Images: Tinder Guys Posing With Art/Tumblr (6); GifWave
