April 11, 2026 — Look slowly. See more.
ARTInfo: Slow Art Day Fights Visual Grazing With a Deep Dive Into Museums
by Kyle Chayka
Published in ARTInfo: August 17, 2012
A 2001 study showed that visitors to the Metropolitan Museum looked at individual works of art for an average of just 17 seconds at a time, a visual habit called “grazing.” Even the most iconic artworks in the world can’t seem to hold our attention: The Louvre discovered that visitors look at the Mona Lisa for just 15 seconds on average. In the age of the moving image and endlessly updated World Wide Web, works of art in more traditional media don’t get the focus they deserve. Slow Art Day, a three-year-old initiative currently ramping up for its 2013 event, is looking to change all that with an orchestrated long art-viewing session at museums around the world.
by Kyle Chayka
Published in ARTInfo: August 17, 2012
A 2001 study showed that visitors to the Metropolitan Museum looked at individual works of art for an average of just 17 seconds at a time, a visual habit called “grazing.” Even the most iconic artworks in the world can’t seem to hold our attention: The Louvre discovered that visitors look at the Mona Lisa for just 15 seconds on average. In the age of the moving image and endlessly updated World Wide Web, works of art in more traditional media don’t get the focus they deserve. Slow Art Day, a three-year-old initiative currently ramping up for its 2013 event, is looking to change all that with an orchestrated long art-viewing session at museums around the world.
[…] My first official Slow Art project was the Rewired book I made and posted about here. While I was writing that blog post, I mentioned the concept of Slow Art with the thought that I had blogged about it previously and then discovered I hadn’t, hence this blog post. But, I was reminded of my intention to blog about Slow Art by an article I found online about Slow Art Day. […]