Tag Archives: art of looking

The Unique Vision of Edvard Munch

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Sue Prideaux, author of Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, wrote a feature article on the artist for the summer edition of Tate Etc. magazine to accompany the Tate Modern’s exhibition,“Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye.”

Prideaux writes about how Munch was affected by spiritualism and use of developing camera technology. In his photography, Munch experimented with the exposure and other processes to achieve supernatural effects that suggested “spirit images” and dopplegängers. Even paintings like “Madonna” (above) were influenced by photographs that claimed to capture the aura emitted by all living beings.

Read more to learn about Edvard Munch’s unique vision and how the arts of looking and painting in the Modernist period were changed by that period’s new technology.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Time Traveling to Get a Different Perspective?

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Not all experiences of looking are the same. LACMA gallery attendant (and artist/writer) Hylan Booker reminded me of this in his recent Unframed blog post about the museum’s Unveiling Femininity in Indian Painting and Photography exhibit.

Booker travels back in time to imagine what the experience of seeing the artwork would have been like for a Victorian British or Indian male. He considers the role that eroticism and myth might have played in how the art was both seen and made.

Read Hylan’s blog post to think more about the context of looking and visit this exhibit at LACMA to take your own slow look.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Slow Forest Year

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You think looking at an individual painting or sculpture for 10 minutes seems long? How about a year?

James Gorman reviews a new book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, in the New York Times Science Times today. It turns out the author, David Haskell, spent a year slowly watching a patch of nature.

Haskell, a scientist, “did no experiments and no research…He sat, and watched, and listened” for this yearlong meditative study.

For example, one day he spent an hour slowly observing squirrels. That simple activity helped him realize something obvious and profound. Like a Slow Art Day participant who discovers a color, texture or other seemingly hidden element, Haskell joyfully discovered that “squirrels appear to enjoy the sun, a phenomenon that occurs nowhere in the curriculum of modern biology.”

I’m getting the book today. I recommend you do the same.

– Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder

New Video: “Erin Shirreff Takes Her Time”

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The Art:21 New York Close Up documentary series just released a video on Erin Shirreff.

Shirreff transforms the experience of looking at photos. She invites viewers to linger on a single photo. Each photo has multiple still images – each image a different perspective or manipulation – and all placed into a video stream.

What do I mean?

Watch the above video to learn more and to get inspired to really look.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

A New Look at the Old

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Think you know the works of old masters? You might have to think again after you see the work of artist Bence Hajdu, profiled in this article on Hyperallergic and this article on Hypenotice. Hajdu digitally removes the figures from a series of paintings and turns the focus on the environment, the backgrounds, and the interior spaces.

The digital removal of figures forces viewers to notice things they may have missed before – like the patterns on a floor or the perspective of the picture plane. His unique approach is a good reminder that in a work of art there are always many details to take in slowly.

Thanks again to Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic and Boogie at Hypenotice for the great articles that originally brought this artist to our attention.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

It Takes Multiple Visits To Be A Lady

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I liked Thomas Micchelli’s review of To Be A Lady, a new show in Manhattan, for many reasons including that he begins the article by describing something we in the Slow Art Day movement often experience: it takes a few visits to really see an exhibit.

In his opening paragraphs, he takes pains to go into detail about why the review itself is based on his second visit.

I specify my second visit because my first was preoccupied with the show’s startling scale, ambition and quality.

I also often find that the first visit to an exhibit is preoccupying. It’s hard to see the individual pieces of art.

And this is an especially important consideration with a show like this one, which aims to make visible what’s been too-much hidden from public view: the contribution and impact of many women artists.

The review is worth reading – and the show reviewed is certainly worth seeing slowly at least twice.

For more on the show, which is open until January 2013, click here.

– Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder

The art of looking at art – Met Director Thomas Campbell

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Metropolitan Museum of Art Director, Thomas P. Campbell, talks about the art of asking basic questions and of really looking at art.

Of interest, he refers to an Italian art professor, a passionate teacher, who reminded him that “all art was once contemporary” and implored him not to get caught up in art world jargon but rather to use his eyes, to really look, to ask basic questions and to try to *see* the art.