Philip Oltermann, ‘I try to make them feel as ignorant as possible’: German museum’s ‘grumpy guide’ is surprise hit, The Guardian, 2 November 2025
Performance artist’s aggressive art historian shouts at visitors and insults curators – and his tours are sold out.
On a recent autumn evening in Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast museum, the guide Joseph Langelinck paused next to a Renaissance sculpture of a man with a wooden club and challenged his flock of 18 visitors to name the mythical hero depicted.
“Hercules?” a woman in the front row proposed in a soft voice. “If you know the answer, why can’t you tell us in a way that those at the back can hear you, too?” Langelinck admonished the visitor, before challenging her to name the 12 labours in chronological order.