Tag Archives: Slow looking

Looking Slowly, Again

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Slow Art Day has asked its 2013 college interns to write short summaries of their own experiences looking slowly at artworks of their choosing. Sylvia Faichney, Slow Art Day intern from the Art Institute of Chicago, writes here about her experience seeing the unexpected.

I’ve learned that through my practices of looking slowly that even after looking at a piece one, two, or even three times slowly I still may not have seen all that it has to show me.

Despite believing that looking slowly over several visits can yield ever more insights, I had the surprising recent experience of going to my favorite museum and looking at one of my favorite pieces of art and finding that there were significant elements that I had previously completely missed.

(Images Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Let me explain.

Living in the city of Chicago I have access to multiple galleries and museums. The Art Institute of Chicago, however, is one of my favorites. I’ve visited multiple times and I have it almost memorized. I know it so well that I know what’s around every corner. Or so I thought before I did this slow looking exercise for Slow Art Day.

I chose to look slowly again at Gerhard Richter’s Ice 1, 2, 3, 4. I have seen it slowly multiple times – including for this recent exercise. I am entranced every time by its fluidity, by its color and by what I call only describe as its “togetherness.”

On my visits prior to the one for this exercise, I have sat and tried to understand why these four separate canvases are somehow cohesive. I previously have noted that although each composition is different there is a unity created by the colors.

Today, when I sit for my third time in front of this wonderful set of four paintings, I discover that not only the composition but the colors play a key role in creating the cohesion. When I look at it one way, I see chaos and separation. The paintings can appear to be disconnected. But, Richter in his genius somehow uses the chaos in a way to connect. Further, the emotional feeling I experience from this chaotic connected work is calm. I don’t know how he does that. He uses a wide variety of colors. The pieces are complex. The texture is rich and constantly yielding new insights.

A few minutes go by and I notice something I hadn’t before. What is that big streak of grey? The movement had always seemed so consistent to me and there in front of me was a break in the pattern created by this rather large diagonal grey streak. My eyes move along to the other canvases to where I find that there is another break in the pattern I had missed. There it was, a curved orange, green, and blue brush stroke that I had missed on my previous visits.

“How had I not noticed this on my previous visits?!”

I ask myself this question as I continue to look and follow the movement of these new-found curves. I become astonished – not only am I seeing these new patterns but I’m also seeing colors I had missed or misunderstood previously. For example, the color I had always assumed was grey in the compositions, appears in fact to be purple. This was a huge shock to me. An entire color in all of the compositions that had looked one way to me begins to appear as a different color. And this true color that I had just now noticed changes the tone of each piece. It’s quite dramatic. After realizing this I also discover undertones of other colors I had previously not noticed – a dark green, a yellow, different shades of blue all begin to reveal themselves. As I look closely, I see that they had been cleverly tucked away behind layers of more prominent colors. I can’t believe that after all of the time I have spent in the past with these paintings that I am seeing so much more – and so much that I had misunderstood.

Despite my surprise and shock, at the end of my slow looking exercise I feel that calm from Richter – so calm that I’m rejuvenated. I’m not tired. I’m not burnt out. I’m excited and my senses are heightened. I get up to leave but before I go I take a quick look at the description written by the curators. “…Impulses and contradiction of representation urging skeptics in the evaluation of the purpose and effect of all constructed visual phenomena.” I’m not sure what they mean but I think I agree.
When I’m back home and reflecting on my experience, I realize that I really thought that I wouldn’t experience anything new from looking slowly at these Richter paintings for a third time. Now I see that I may never be done learning, and that maybe there are certain art works that take many visits to fully experience. Even in my favorite corner of my favorite museum that I have been to many times, I now know that I can sit down and ask myself if I really have seen it all.

– Sylvia Faichney, Art Institute of Chicago

Gerhard Richter’s Ice 1, 2, 3, 4 among other great works are available to view at the Art Institute of Chicago.  The Art Institute of Chicago is not currently a 2014 Slow Art Day venue.  Sign up to host here!

Artful Snaps

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Recently we’ve asked members of the Slow Art Day community to send us their “art selfies,” as in, their self-snapped pictures of proclaimed slow looking aficionados viewing and interacting with art.

Submit your own #artselfie to any one of our social media platforms such as tumblr, twitter, and facebook to share your love of art with the community at large.

– Karen

Seeing the unexpected

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Slow Art Day has asked its 2013 college interns to write short summaries of their own experiences looking slowly at artworks of their choosing. Amanda Kegu, Slow Art Day intern from the University of Florida, writes here about her experience seeing the unexpected.

Viewing art slowly is not one of my normal habits at art museums. My first instinct, like many other art history nerds, is to beeline to the contemporary wing to gape in awe at a huge Jackson Pollock or to sit in a dark room for a few seconds watching a video installation before dashing to the next item. My usual goal is to see as many famous works of art at once to claim I’ve seen them in person. This is how usually I decide (1) the quality of the museum and (2) how well informed I am as an art historian.

However, just because a museum has a dozen Picassos and I’ve seen them all in under five minutes does not make that a great museum or make me a better viewer. If I really look back to my time spent in museums, most of it was spent moving from exhibition to exhibition wondering what was around the corner. I can appreciate the qualities, the skills, and the context of the works, but I view these works of art like they’re celebrities, there to be ticked off on my list of things to see in my lifetime.

Since joining the Slow Art Day team as an intern, I have come to understand the importance of looking at works slowly to truly appreciate them. I recently visited the Harn Museum of Art on the University of Florida campus to see their new contemporary exhibit (clearly, I’m a fan of today’s artists). I have interned there for two semesters and have been a Gallery Guide before, so I am very familiar with the works on display. But I wondered how my perspective has changed since becoming involved with Slow Art Day, so I decided to slowly look at one of my favorite pieces in the Modern collection, El Encuentro by Angel Botello.

Angel Botello, El Encuentro, 1950

Angel Botello (1913-1986) was a Spanish born artist known as the “Caribbean Ganguin” because of his distinct expressionistic style and use of colors. El Encuentro (1950) depicts the “encounter” between the natives of Haiti and Christopher Columbus. The abstracted figures stand and sit against a geometric background. Each figure has flattened, triangular feet and morphed hands with only four fingers. Behind the two largest figures in the front, hands raise in the background from unseen bodies. All the figures hands mimic each other, grabbing towards each other for some reason. Botello used warm and cool colors to contrast the neutral colors in the background and to highlight the emotions of the natives as they encounter a foreign person. He skillfully fit all the figures into geometric shapes, and the touches of lines all echo the energy of the people. Their hands reach up towards the sky as though they were searching for an answer from above and the geometric background representing chaos and confusion heightens the emotions of the scene.

Standing there looking at this for seven minutes gave me the chance to see the little details that Botello included. Every line, color, and mark that Botello used was to capture the energy of the natives that he lived amongst and tell the tale of the people he was a part of. Looking at their faces, I felt I could understand their confusion and distress when Columbus, a complete stranger that looks much different from their own people, appears almost magically from the ocean. It seemed so long ago today, but the impact of that moment was profound for Haiti. Slowly appreciating Botello’s quality of line, color, and shape made me understand his personal goal to capture his ancestors’ emotional state at this moment in time. Had I quickly glanced at this piece without stopping to look slowly, I would not have been able to fully understand what Botello was attempting to convey with his work of art.
This experience has made me realize that my method of viewing art in museums is not the most effective way. I might be the most efficient viewer in a museum, but seeing 10 works of art means nothing if I can’t recall the qualities of it. Its hard to describe the difference in the slow approach to looking, so here’s my advice: take a minute (or seven), slow down, and really take a look at art. Its amazing what you can see when you’re actually looking, especially when you don’t know what you’re looking for.

– Amanda Kegu, University of Florida

Angel Botello’s El Encuentro among other great works is available to view at the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, FL. Sign up to participate in the Harn Museum’s Slow Art Day event here.

Teaching Patience

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John Singleton Copley’s A Boy with a Flying Squirrel, 1765

John Singleton Copley, A Boy with a Flying Squirrel, 1765

What this exercise shows students is that just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Just because something is available instantly to vision does not mean that it is available instantly to consciousness. Or, in slightly more general terms: access is not synonymous with learning. What turns access into learning is time and strategic patience. (via)

Jennifer L. Roberts, a Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, talks in detail about how she uses slow looking in and outside of her classroom. To read more, especially about her three hour slow looking exercise in front of Copley’s painting, click here.

– Karen

What #isamuseum?

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Sam Durant wants to help you redefine the museum.

Through this interactive online project, What #isamuseum?, the artist and 2013 Getty Artists Program Invitee uses crowd sourcing to explore the purpose and use of museums today. Durant mixes his own tongue-in-cheek musings with community submitted responses with the succinct control of a well worded tweet.

Durant uses social media channels in a way akin to Slow Art Day’s own use: to further discourse and broaden reach.

Why don’t we contribute to this fascinating project by sharing what every host and participant of Slow Art Day knows: that museums can be fun and for everyone by partaking in Slow Art Day!

Share your slow looking knowledge and explore further here.

– Karen

Slow Art, Fast City

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Slow Art Fast City from Raw Footage Films on Vimeo.

“Beyond slow looking we had no rules. We weren’t looking for anything, we didn’t have to like what we saw, there would be no wrong way to look or right way either.“

See video coverage of founder Phil Terry’s 2013 Slow Art Day event embedded above from Raw Footage Films. Phil’s event took place at the Brooklyn Museum with each participant viewing five works. Each viewer was eager to view these hand-selected works and discuss the experience afterwards.

The group felt gratified knowing that “while our conversation was specific and personal,” 270+ venues across the world were having their own “attentive and unmediated” conversations about art. As the fast-paced antics of New York City beckoned at the close of the event, the participants left gratified with a new awakening to the benefits of slow looking.

Feeling inspired?
Don’t forget it’s never too early to sign up as a host or to participate in a 2014 venue near you.

Was your Slow Art Day event similarly invigorating? Share your experiences below in the comments!

Host Reports: Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, Australia

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[In this series, we will be posting reports from Slow Art Day hosts around the world who held Slow Art Day events on April 27, 2013. This week, we are featuring the Slow Art Day event run by Susan Way, held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, Australia]

Hi Everyone,

Slow Art Day was celebrated at the Art Gallery of Western Australia by featuring four photographs from the Picturing New York: Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art exhibition. The day was a great success and started with 15 participants. As our Voluntary Gallery Guide, Alan Ruda, ushered visitors slowly around the exhibition more and more people gathered. By the second set of photographs there were easily 40 people participating. By the end of the tour there were between 60 and 70 people crowded around Michael Wesely’s 7 August 2001-7 June 2004 The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s An Eye at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The group had high energy and were very interested. In the end, Alan suggested the group break into smaller groups and go back to the photos that really interested them. Everyone was very happy with this and Alan spent another hour answering specific questions and listening to the keen observations visitors made about the artwork.

We had organised to take photographs as a small group retired to coffee and conversation in our Manhattan Lounge. However the sheer number of participants prevented this from happening – which is a positive in our eyes. Our day may not have gone exactly as we imagined it, nevertheless to quote Alan, “It was a heck of a lot of fun!”

Regards,

Sue

“Curating in an attention deficit”

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Todd Smith, Executive Director at the Tampa Museum of Art, recently filmed a video for the Tampa Bay Business Journal on what he’s observed as the change in how people view art. He compares the anachronistic way of focusing intently on one subject that is characteristic of his generation (“vertical” thinking) with the new wave of technologically-centred “horizontal” thinking. This brings to the fore a new challenge for art museums, like the Tampa Museum of Art, in how they educate visitors who are not accustomed to “vertical” or deep thinking. Smith poses the question “what does a museum experience look like, now and going forward for both my generation and older… and the younger generation?”

Smith sees this new way of thinking revolutionizing how museums curate their exhibitions, based on their observations of whether visitors take their time and look at works slowly or if they jump around and “make their own stories”. Smith foresees this adding another dimension to curating, in that “we’ll put the work up and tell our story, but we are interested in what the visitor is making of their own stories about the work,” essentially thinking of the visitor as the curator.

At Slow Art Day we, of course, advocate for a slow looking that fosters the “vertical” or deep thinking cited by Smith. Postulating the visitor as curator has the potential to foster a freer way of thinking that might lead to this kind of deeper, or “vertical”, way, vs. the merely “horizontal”. What do you think?

Host Reports: Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin

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[In this series, we will be posting reports from Slow Art Day hosts around the world who held Slow Art Day events on April 27, 2013. This week, we are featuring the Slow Art Day event run by Karen Barrett-Wilt, held at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin]

Hello from Madison WI!

Highlights of our first Slow Art Day included eating lunch outside (Spring is here!), 15 participants, and a great conversation. The conversation required very little facilitating from me. A couple of people had never been to the Chazen Museum of Art, but all were still very willing to talk about their experiences. We had a spirited conversation with a lot of respectful disagreement, which is one thing that I love about art – no one is wrong! I’d like to add my thanks to the organizers – you were incredibly efficient and responsive, and made it all so easy. Thank you!

-Karen

Karen also included a couple of photographs of one of the pieces they viewed at their Slow Art Day, Beth Cavener Stichter’s L’Amante, 2012.

Stichter L'Amante 2

Stichter L'Amante 3

Host to Host: Rachel Matthews

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[Hosts around the world are introducing themselves to each other in advance of Slow Art Day. Today we’re featuring some words from Rachel Matthews, the volunteer host at the Getty Center in West Los Angeles]

Hello fellow Slow Art hosts,

My name is Rachel Mathews and I will be hosting this year’s Slow Art Day at the Getty Center in West Los Angeles. This is my first year as a host, 4th year as a participant; I’m looking forward to being a part of Slow Art Day once again! While I’m not an art scholar, I do love viewing art and Slow Art Day is a great way to expand my art horizons. The Getty Center is a wonderful museum that has a wide variety of art, which makes it difficult to pick just 5 pieces; fortunately, I was able to get a friend to make the choices (we were originally supposed to co-host, but sadly, she’ll be out of town on Saturday).

I had an incredible experience the first year I attended Slow Art Day, at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, that’s kept me coming back. A friend/co-worker was hosting and, in the viewing guide, there was a piece that I felt I was not going to enjoy. After I paid for my museum admission, I decided to head to the end of the furthest gallery and work my way back. As I walked, I spotted some of the other pieces in the viewing guide and made note where they were; suddenly, I saw a piece in the distance and was drawn to it – it was the piece I thought I wouldn’t like. But it was much larger than it looked in the guide (it ended up having an entire room to itself; I could see it about a gallery and a half away due to its size), which changed the experience completely. As I spent more and more time with this huge painting, I kept noticing more and more details about it and in it, which was intriguing. After spending 15 minutes with the piece, I absolutely loved it! After seeing all of the other pieces in the viewing guide, I decided that the first piece was my favorite. The following year, I went back to the same museum and made sure to spend time with it again.

One of my other friends wasn’t able to make the first 3 Slow Art Days, so I organized an interim Slow Art experience at the Getty last Fall for that friend and the friend who has hosted the previous Slow Art Days I attended. Since I don’t live near the Getty, I chose all of the artwork off of their website and wasn’t sure what my own reactions to the pieces I had selected would be, much less the impressions my 2 companions that day would have. I made sure to choose a couple of pieces that I wouldn’t normally be attracted to, hoping to re-enact that first year Slow Art attitude shift. Although we had to spend some time searching for the various pieces (which was part of the adventure), we all had a great time and, afterwards, had a very robust discussion about how the pieces impacted us.

I’m really looking forward to next Saturday. I wish everyone great success with their Slow Art Day events around the world!

Sincerely,
Rachel Mathews

[Make sure to check out (and register for!) Rachel’s Slow Art Day event at the Getty Centre in West Los Angeles]