Andreas Henning was caught off guard by the Swifties coming out of the woodwork.
At the Museum Wiesbaden, the museum he oversees near Frankfurt, Taylor Swift fans have been coming in droves to take in “Ophelia,” a rather obscure painting by the 19th-century artist Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser inspired by the tragic character in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
The reason for the sudden interest appears in the opening seconds of the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” the lead single from Swift’s new album, “The Life of A Showgirl.” Swift is shown floating in water in a white dress in an apparent tableau-vivant homage to Heyser’s painting.
“Tell her I would love to know how she came across the painting,” Dr. Henning, the museum’s director, said in an interview, referring to Swift. “Does she love the painting? What is special for her and the painting? Has she ever been to Wiesbaden?”
Despite his bewilderment, Dr. Henning is happy to be among the latest beneficiaries of Swift’s Midas touch.
“We are seeing a lot of teens here and a lot of people, especially during the weekends, hundreds of young people who come and are looking for this painting,” Dr. Henning said, adding, “This is great because a lot of these people might never have come to Wiesbaden.”
It’s long been true that Swift’s stardom has a demonstrated economic effect because of her concerts. But the episode in Wiesbaden, a city of fewer than 300,000 people, shows how even the slightest gaze from Swift can move the needle.
This month, Swift wore a vintage Monterey Bay Aquarium sea otter conservation T-shirt in a movie tied to the release of her new album. (She and her fiancé, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, bantered about sea otters on Kelce’s podcast, “New Heights,” in August.) The team at the aquarium scrambled to find the original design for the shirt, which was printed in the 1990s, digging through the archives and trying to reach former employees, to meet the demand of fans who were clamoring to buy one.
Eventually, the nonprofit aquarium started a fund-raiser with the shirt as a prize. It raised more than $2 million. Like Dr. Henning, aquarium officials are not sure why Swift wore that particular T-shirt. Not that they mind, of course.
“As soon as we went live, that ticker just started rolling up, and up, and up, and up,” Liz MacDonald, the aquarium’s director of content strategy, said, referring to the fund-raiser. “And we actually hit our original goal of $1.3 million in about eight hours.”
Very little is unintentional in the carefully curated world of Taylor Swift Inc. But her core fan base of younger women are dedicated to following her lead (and aggressively defending her in the face of criticism). They want to wear what she wears and share the experiences she shares.
Clark Hunt, the chief executive of the Chiefs, credited Swift with expanding the team’s fan base, particularly among women. A London pub, the Black Dog, became an unlikely tourist destination because Swift wrote a song of the same name for the extended version of her 2024 album “The Tortured Poets Department.” After Swift donated $100,000 to a toddler with a rare form of brain cancer this month, her fans donated tens of thousands more.
(Swift’s “Fate of Ophelia” video ends with an apparent nod to another 19th-century “Ophelia” painting by Sir John Everett Millais, which is part of the collection at the Tate Britain in London. But the Swift effect on that institution has been less clear, in part because the Tate does not charge admission.)
“Part of the definition of being a fan is being a collector in a way, whether you’re collecting merchandise, the recordings, tour posters, whatever the case may be,” said Theo Cateforis, an associate professor of music history at Syracuse University. “But you also collect experiences. And to me, making that trip to the museum is a way of collecting an experience that ties into what Taylor Swift means to you.”
Celebrity endorsements have long influenced fans. Thanks to the Beatles, tourists disrupt traffic every day on Abbey Road in London to recreate the famous album cover. Kurt Cobain was photographed wearing a T-shirt with Daniel Johnston’s hand-drawn cover art from his album “Hi, How Are You,” helping introduce Johnston, a relatively obscure indie artist, to a new generation of fans.
“I’m not sure if I can say that this is about Taylor Swift, but it’s definitely about Taylor Swift fans as meticulous cultural critics and cultural researchers,” said Gayle Wald, a professor of American studies at George Washington University.
But Swift’s fans, and Swift herself, have grown up in the era of social media, which has changed the kind of parasocial relationships that fans have with stars. (Dr. Henning suggested that Swift and her team likely came across Heyser’s “Ophelia,” also known as “The Death of Ophelia,” through Google.)
“A T-shirt that becomes visible, you can discover the source of that T-shirt very quickly on the internet and feel like you’re participating in something collective, which you are, when you’re paying attention along with a lot of other fans together,” Dr. Wald said.
In the meantime, institutions like the Museum Wiesbaden benefit from a stray mention here and there. “The Fate of Ophelia” video has been viewed more than 76 million times on YouTube. On Nov. 2, the Museum Wiesbaden will hold an event for Swifties where those who dress like Heyser’s “Ophelia” will receive free admission. There will be a guided tour, as well as specially produced Ophelia bracelets.
The museum is in the midst of celebrating its 200th anniversary. Swift’s homage, Dr. Henning said, was “a birthday present for the museum.”
Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture.
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