First off, we’re not guards. I prefer “guardian.” Second-biggest art museum in the country, a collection worth billions of dollars, and the only thing standing between you and 5,000 years of human expression is me. So a little respect, please.
Been doing this for 12 years now. Nothing I ain’t seen. One time I caught two art students taking off their shirts in gallery 391A, and on their backs they each had a tattoo of half of Picasso’s old guitarist. Saw a kid kick a flip-flop into a 16th-century Saxony jousting helmet the other day. Some guy over in 263 smuggled in his own pitchfork. A pitchfork! Said he wanted to pose in front of American Gothic with his wife. People are crazy.
Source: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2012/Inside-the-Mind-of-an-Art-Institute-Guard/
