Naked at the Art Institute?

Whenever one sees a tweet inviting readers to go on a naked scavenger hunt at the Art Institute, the tweet bears researching.

Thankfully, you don’t really have to take off your clothes. Rather, for a mere $41, you can sign up with Watson Adventures to go on a hunt for nude art inside the museum on Feb. 14. Here are the pertinent details:

I don’t agree with the usage of the term “dangerous natives,” because it sounds like a description of native folk in a negative manner. However, it did get me to thinking about nude art in the Institute. Turns out that the people behind Watson Adventures organize these cultural scavenger hunts all across the country. They even do events for corporate types. This nude hunt isn’t the only one. There’s a wizarding hunt, a Lincoln Park Zoo hunt, a movie scene hunt, a murder mystery whodunit and also hunts at The Field Museum and The Museum of Science and Industry.

Watson does this kind of work everywhere, actually. In fact, the New York Times most recently wrote about their 2014 kid-centric scavenger event in the Big Apple.

But back to Chicago. The Art Institute has quite a few works of art that depict people in the buff. The picture at the top of this blog, Pablo Picasso’s “Nude Under a Pine Tree,” is one. Then there’s Max Beckmann’s “Reclining Nude.” There are more, too, but this is a PG-13 story. Watson reports that you don’t need to be a nude expert in order to partake in the festivities.

Happy hunting.