Slow Art Day 2017 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. Belgium was home to 11 Slow Art Day events, the most in any country after the US, with 5 in Antwerp alone.
Another Slow Art Day has come and gone! We loved seeing and hearing all about your experiences this year and hope you’ll join us again for Slow Art Day 2018 (on Saturday, April 14)!
Although the Slow Art Day team is based out of the United States, and got its start at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, we’ve been thrilled to see Slow Art Day spread around the globe and flourish across continents. Every year we have fun tallying up the total number of events as well as the countries, cities and states represented on our host list. So without further ado, Slow Art Day 2017 by the numbers:
- 196 total events
- Events in 21 different countries
- Events in 31 US states as well as Washington D.C.
- After the US, the country with the most Slow Art Day events was Belgium, with 12 events!
- The US state with the most Slow Art Day events was Florida, with 11 events!
- The individual city with the most Slow Art Day events was Antwerp, Belgium with 5 events!
- 95 of our hosts (almost half) were brand new to Slow Art Day and had never hosted a Slow Art Day event before.
- On the other hand, 13 of our hosts hosted their FIFTH Slow Art Day event this year – they’ve hosted every year since 2013! Special shout out to The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum; the National Portrait Gallery of Australia; the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; the McMaster Museum of Art; the Portland Art Museum; La Macina di San Cresci; Gray Loft Gallery; Tom Thomson Art Gallery; the Springfield Art Museum; Toledo Museum of Art; the Cincinnati Art Museum; and the Birmingham Museum of Art.
As every year, we’re enormously grateful to our dedicated and engaged host community. Without their hard work and efforts, Slow Art Day would not be possible.
I’m so glad I discovered Slow Art Day just before this year’s event. I went to the Walters in Baltimore MD and enjoyed looking at art in a small group with the guidance of a docent.
Most of us need to learn how to slow down in general and specifically how to change our behavior from glancing at a painting, scanning a small label on the wall to find out the artist and name of the work, and then moving on to the next. I think museums can do a lot more both in person and online to encourage visitors to come more often, stay longer, return regularly, and give each visit greater purpose.
Besides measuring the growing scale of Slow Art Day (congrats by the way!), have you considered becoming a forum for sharing ideas about how to slow down and enrich the museum experience the other 364 days of the year?
Thanks for your thoughts, Niels, and I’m so glad you enjoyed Slow Art Day this year!
We’re a small all-volunteer team with limited resources, but would definitely love to be more active in between annual events and to encourage slow looking 24/7, 365 days a year. We have some things in the works for this year – stay tuned!