For their third Slow Art Day, the art gallery PKULTRA, in Seattle, WA, invited visitors to experience an installation by gallery owner, Paul Kuniholm, titled “Project Urban Penthouse.”

The installation was an empty space above an exhibition venue for the specific purpose of, in Paul Kuniholm’s words, “void intervention: an encapsulation of nothingness for nothingness’ sake.” Said another way, it’s an intentional use of space for nothing.

Kuniholm is a fourth-generation Seattle-based public artist of Swedish descent who works in sculpture, video, mural art, time-based work, as well as digital and binary art (which was the focus of PKULTRA’s Slow Art Day event last year).

Visitors to the gallery were invited to look slowly at Project Urban Penthouse.

To look at “nothing”, in a fast-paced, tech-based, and materialistic culture, is an interesting provocation to the idea that everything must have a purpose.

At its radical core, slow looking, like art in general, is also purposeless in the sense that it’s best when it’s not a transaction, but rather seen as something valuable in and of itself, without recourse to justification.

Thus, we at Slow Art Day HQ like Kuniholm’s provocation and look forward to what interesting exhibit he creates for Slow Art Day 2025.

– Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

P.S. for other installation artworks by Kuniholm, you can view his installation artwork exhibition with Julian Weber Architects. You can also check out the Instagram accounts for artist Paul Kuniholm as well as Art Gallery PKULTRA.