Author Archives: Mr. Turtle

In Birmingham, Slow Art Day is every Sunday

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We at Slow Art Day are excited to learn that Kristi McMillan, assistant curator of education for visitor engagement at the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA), recently launched a new free program: Slow Art Sundays.

Slow Art Sundays, led by museum docents, presents participants with one artwork to look at slowly from a collection of 24,000+ paintings, sculpture and multimedia works from around the world.

After gathering in the designated gallery space, visitors are provided with stools for their slow looking. Importantly, the experience does not start with a lecture or context-setting by the docent. Instead, it begins with 5 minutes of silence so that participants can quietly observe the artwork.

Following the quiet looking, there is a period of discussion. Docents kick it off by asking simple non-directed questions like, “What is your immediate response?” or “What part of life does this artwork capture?”

McMillan, who works on ways to engage visitors says she believes “in the power of internal and external collaboration in order to address the visitor experience holistically.”

While the museum has experienced great success with their new, regular program, they are also excited to continue annual Slow Art Day events. The BMA is a veteran host museum. In fact, Caroline Wingate, master docent there, started hosting it in 2010 and has since become a leading member of the global Slow Art Day volunteer team. For Slow Art Day 2013, the BMA has decided to invite participants to look slowly at two different artworks at two different times during the day.

We at Slow Art Day plan to introduce Kristi McMillan and Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs coordinator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Last week we profiled Laurel and her initiative “Is This Art?” that includes a similar slow looking approach.

Part of our mission at Slow Art Day is to support these kinds of events at museums throughout the year – and also to connect progressive museum educators and curators with each other so that they can learn from and help each other. If you know of a museum or gallery pursuing slow programming we should know about, please comment here on this blog post or contact us.

And if you’re in the Birmingham area anytime in the coming year, stop by and experience a Slow Art Sunday. The BMA is free and open to the public as is this program.

-Dana-Marie Lemmer, Slow Art Day Coordinator

Cincinnati, Ohio – Cincinnati Art Museum

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Melbourne, Australia – The Ian Potter Museum of Art

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A cinematic approach to slow art with Nadin Mai

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We just spoke with Slow Art Day 2013 host Nadin Mai, who came to the idea of slow art from the world of film and the research she has been doing on the origins and influences of what’s called “slow cinema.”

“Slow cinema,” or, as some prefer, “contemplative cinema” is characterized by long takes in which events are given time to unfold, often in real time. Slow films are minimalist – the frames are simple and straightforward and the narrative focuses on only a handful of characters or even just one, keeping the viewer’s attention on a specific action unfolding in front of his or her eyes.

Nadin is a doctoral candidate at the University of Stirling in Film Studies. Her research focuses on how slow cinema filmmakers draw from art forms that preceded the invention of photography, specifically, painting. She shared with us some of the major points of her research.

1. Focus on “reading” visual elements
Since there is little dialogue, the viewer is dependent entirely on his or her eyes more than anything else and has to “read” the visual elements of the films in the way that one does with paintings or even literature.

2. Landscape painting
The rural settings of many of these extended scenes, become vehicles for contemplation, like a landscape painting.

3. Perspective
Finally, like paintings, slow films tend to use medium to long distance shots, taking in more context than close-ups, which photography popularized.

Nadin describes slow looking as a luxury, that “actually seeing something is rare these days. Everything passes by quickly, and unless we say ‘Stop!’, it’ll go on like this.” She finds slow cinema rewarding and wants to bring the same slow mentality to the viewing of art and is hoping to use her experience with Slow Art Day to draw even more connections between slow films and paintings for her research.

Nadin’s Slow Art Day event will take place in The McManus Art Gallery & Museum in Dundee, Scotland. She chose The McManus for its well rounded collection of different types of art, including artifacts from Dundee’s history. She is interested in including some of these artifacts and hopes to trigger a slow viewing of ‘everyday’ objects as well as artwork.

If you are going to be in Dundee, Scotland in April, be sure to sign up to go to The McManus and join Nadin in experiencing a slow cinema-inspired Slow Art Day.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day intern

Milwaukee, Wisconsin- Haggerty Museum of Art

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Edmonton, Alberta- SNAP Gallery

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Portsmouth, United Kingdom – The Gold Room Gallery

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Is this the future of museum art education? A discussion with Laurel Fehrenbach

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We recently caught up with Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs coordinator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, to discuss “Is This Art?”, a museum initiative with several programs that slows visitors down and asks them to focus on only one or two pieces of modern or contemporary art.

We discussed in-depth one of the “Is this Art?” programs, the “Open Discussion” series, which starts by asking people to quietly look at a single piece of art. There is no introduction or curatorial discussion. Then after a while – about 5 minutes – Laurel starts a dialogue with a few questions, like “what are your first impressions?” or “what do you see?”  Throughout the 45 to 60 minutes sessions, Laurel is more of a participant than a moderator.

Laurel has found what we have found in our Slow Art Day events around the world – i.e. that this simple experience of asking people to slow down and look has a big impact. “People don’t often get the opportunity to unplug from their smartphones and cell phones and sit in front of artwork for 10 minutes or an hour. But when they do, the experience is transformative, refreshing and thought provoking.” We agree.

Laurel, who is passionate about helping people see the art without guided experts, is still experimenting with different ways of running the program.

We shared with her the design for Slow Art Day events, particularly the decision to invite people to look slowly on their own without any guide from the museum, though some Slow Art Day events do have a curator or educator come along in a way similar to what Laurel  does. She’s considering bringing Slow Art Day back to the Smithsonian American Art Museum next April (the museum had participated in earlier years) and, in the meantime, is looking to connect with more people like us and others.

We are really happy to see this innovative initiative at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and look forward to continuing a conversation with Laurel as her program evolves. And, like Laurel, we are interested in identifying more museums doing similar programming. In fact, part of our mission at Slow Art Day is to support and inspire these kinds of events.

If you know of a museum or gallery pursuing programming we should know about, please comment here on this blog post or contact us.

And if you are in the DC area next week, stop by and look slowly at some art with Laurel and other participants at the next Open Discussion event, Tuesday, December 4, from 12pm – 1pm.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day intern, with Dana-Marie Lemmer, Slow Art Day Coordinator

Beethoven and Picasso – and the Contemporary Art of Looking?

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As the year winds down, Professor Katy Siegel reflects in Frieze on recent changes in the way art is being made and studied. Interestingly, she suggests it’s like the way music was made in the 17th and 18th centuries – and unlike the way it’s made today. And all of this, in my opinion, has something to do with Beethoven, Picasso and the new art of looking. Let me explain.

In Siegel’s article, she discusses how contemporary art is more becoming more specific and local, and how room is being made for more idiosyncratic and independent artists. I agree and think it’s a important shift.

She then draws a parallel to moments in music history – saying that what’s happening in the art world today reminds her of the 17th and 18th century when music was made locally and to be performed for specific, local audiences. She contrasts that scene to today’s where the same Beethoven symphonies are performed by orchestras all over the world. The implication is clear: classical music in the early 21st century is bland and homogeneous.

I agree and I’ll add this – while a good Beethoven symphony may bring in the audience in the short term, the lack of local, varied and contemporary classical music may be hurting the audience in the long term. It just simply becomes boring no matter how good Beethoven is (and he’s undeniably excellent).

Siegel’s article makes me think how art audiences, like their musical counterparts, are bombard by the same globe-crossing blockbuster exhibits of the same art and artists – Picasso, for example. So, Picasso, whose art I very much love, becomes our art world analog to Beethoven.

These same or similar art exhibits mean that audiences in many major metropolitan areas are looking in the same way at the same art – and while a good blockbuster exhibit may bring in people today, this bland approach may be hurting the development of the art audience in the long term. 

But, there’s a problem. While the same blockbuster Picasso exhibit over and over again may become bland – it not only brings in many people today (and museums need exhibits which bring in large audiences), but it’s easy to look at. People have learned how to look at Picasso. It’s one of the reasons his exhibits are so popular. And, they do not know how to look at much of contemporary art. In fact, contemporary art is hard to look at.

Enter Slow Art Day. We’ve discussed elsewhere how our art of looking actually helps people see contemporary art. It’s hard to believe unless you see it or experience it – but slow looking – i.e. 10 to 15 minutes per piece – makes it possible for anyone of any level of sophistication to see new art.

See, for example, this Slow Art Day 2012 report from Ashland, Oregon, where the participants looked at three works by contemporary, technology-inspired mixed media artist, Jenny Vogel. “Participants told [the host] they were challenged by her selections but the experience of slowly gazing at them made a difference. It really helped them to see multiple dimensions of Vogel’s work…” And this group included a participant who had never once been to a museum, much less looked at challenging contemporary art.

Slow Art Day helps people see contemporary art. That’s important but there’s more to the connection with contemporary art.

I’ve always thought that Slow Art Day – in its underlying form – shared some tenets with contemporary art. And I didn’t think it necessarily had to do either with helping people see new art or with making art slowly – though both are certainly important part. No, I’ve always thought the connection to be more fundamental – and Siegel’s article helps me to clarify how.

While contemporary artists are making art locally and for specific audiences and locations, we are making possible a contemporary art of looking – one that is also local and idiosyncratic.

There is nothing more local than an individual staring slowly at an artwork for 10 or 15 minutes. While we are a global movement, we are indelibly local. The hosts chose the venue and the art – we dictate none of that. And, whatever they are looking at, it’s happening right there in the moment in Salem, Cape Town, LA, London, Leeds and Hong Kong.

Slow Art Day and contemporary artists together give art audiences an art and an experience more varied, more local, and more contemporary. It’s the contemporary art…of looking.

– Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder with Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day intern

Dundee, Scotland- The McManus

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