An unlikely social media star has been born in the heart of D.C. Her mission, share the wonderful exhibits at the National Gallery of Art to new audiences specifically, Gen Z.
How is she doing it? By using new slang to explain some of their finest pieces.
“Chat, peep this bussin clay dish from the 16th century,” Alison Luchs, the curator of early European sculpture and Deputy Head of the Department of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art, can be heard saying on a recent Instagram post.
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That particular Gen Z “lowkey rizzlers” curator post has garnered over six million views as of Wednesday. Her second post on the National Gallery’s Instagram page just days later — over two million.
Luchs told WTOP that the idea for the posts came from their in-house social media team, “And they suggested that perhaps we could make a video speaking about those works in Gen Z slang and I was sort of puzzled. I don’t really know Gen Z slang, and I thought who’d want to look at that.”
Sydni Myers, the museum’s social media manager, approached Alison after a staff meeting and asked, “Would you be interested in rizzing up the internet with us?”
And she looked at me, blinked a little bit and said, ‘Sure, if it brings attention to the sculptures,’ and I think the reason why she said yes is because she really is a true at-heart steward of her collection,” said Myers.
Luchs was also game to add some new words to her vocabulary as she attempted to attract some new visitors to see the tens of thousands of works housed at the National Gallery.
“I’ve always loved learning languages,” Luchs said. “I’ve even done some translating, and so I enjoy it. It was great to learn the new words.”
Her new lingo covers everything from “drip,” meaning swagger, to “mid” and “goated,” mediocre and “greatest of all time” respectively.
“Girly pop is the moment, and she is living rent free in our heads and the National Gallery of Art,” Luchs said about the “Dish with an allegorical subject” from the Workshop of Orazio Pompei, their first subject.
The subject of Luch’s next video was an urn with a long history of reuse.
“Chat, I’m about to bus it down Roman Empire style. Haters will say this urn is mid, but they don’t know we’ve clocked its tea,” Luchs said in the post.
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Titled “Urn with Grotesque Masks,” Alison found this piece to be a perfect example of remixed art. The dark purplish red stone porphyry was mined in ancient Egypt and then imported by the Romans to make columns, tombs and even bathtubs.
The stone was likely taken from one of these uses in the Roman era and was reworked to become an urn in the late 16th century, according to Luchs.
“I had suggested it because it’s amusing and interesting, partly for the material and partly for the carving, with all these fantastic, grotesque faces, the roaring lion with his claws, and then all the strange faces on the handles. Everywhere you look, there’s a grotesque face,” she said.
The post was also a reminder for the museum’s Open Call competition where artists can be reimagined into another work.
Luchs said it was a perfect piece to represent that concept. “It was a material that had been made into one thing and then hundreds of years later, made into something else.”
Neither Luchs nor Myers expected these posts to become as popular as they did.
“I was just overwhelmed by not only the engagement,” Myers said.
She said comments came in from all over the world saying, ‘I will die for Allison Luchs’, ‘I will go to war for Allison’ and ‘I want to be her when I grow up and I’m 28 years old.’
“It was great to see people learn about this art history that we often don’t talk about that much casually, and for them to say that they have an interest in visiting our museum. That was amazing,” said Myers.
Luchs told WTOP that she was just as surprised to see the posts blow up.
“I thought there’d be a few 100, and there’d be a certain number of cringes saying, ‘what does that woman think she’s doing.’ It never occurred to me that anything like this would happen,” she said.
Luchs said she has decided to continue to help the social media team and explain more art in Gen Z slang.
Myers told WTOP, “We have some fun content planned. We might have a fun tie to a show that maybe relates to hockey that people are talking about a lot right now, so it should be really fun, entertaining.”
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