Patrick Bringley, who wrote a memoir about his time as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an off-Broadway show based on his book.
He now stars as a version of himself in a one-man Off-Broadway show of the same name, dressed as a Met guard and regaling audiences in his soft, calming voice with meditative tales of unscrupulous visitors, the colourful backstories of his colleagues and, of course, about some of his favourite works of art.
Some of the most interesting stories related in The Art Newspaper articles were about the wide range of occupations and backgrounds of the over 500 people who work as guards at the Met Museum. One of them intersected with the impact of being surrounded by all these artworks.
Bringley says one of his colleagues was a banker in Togo who fled the country after avoiding an assassination attempt. He and Bringley worked together at the Astor Chinese Garden Court, a Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden with an iconic, round Moon Gate as its entrance. When the colleague retired, he showed Bringley a picture of a house he was building in Ghana which had a replicae of the moon gate.
What caught my attention initially about the article is that I have seen a number of articles and comments from museum professionals who have recognized that their guards are often among the most popular and knowledgeable sources of information for visitors in their organizations. A couple mentioned centering programming around some of their guards.
So it isn’t terribly surprising to learn Bringley’s book about his experiences was a best seller.
