Singaporean gallery ARTualize participated in their 2nd Slow Art Day by offering their year-long Mindfulness with Paintings class for free on the day of the event, and throughout April. Sok Leng, museum instructor, guided participants to look mindfully and slowly at the painting “By the River Seine” by established Singapore artist Low Hai Hong. They then had a discussion about the feelings the painting conjured up.
“By the River Seine” by artist Low Hai Hong. Medium: Oil on Canvas. Year: 2001.Photo credit: ARTualize.
“Looking at paintings slowly gave me a deeper appreciation of the painting and a better understanding of myself through the art.”
Michelle, Slow Art Day Participant
ARTualize’s Slow Art Day event was also featured on Singapore’s main news broadcast channel Chinese Mediacorp Channel 8 News a few weeks after the event, and was the first time Slow Art has been featured on Singapore TV.
You can watch the TV segment below.
Educators and curators may want to copy the simple design of their weekly 1.5 hour Mindfulness with Paintings sessions, which are held every Saturday throughout the year:
1 – Concept – Introduce mindfulness and basic mindfulness techniques.
2 – Practice – Look at selected paintings slowly and mindfully (at least 1 minute for each painting).
3 – Discussion – Reflect upon the experience and realize how different paintings (and for that matter, life in general) feel, when we are mindful and when we take our time to slowly savour.
When we originally launched Slow Art Day in 2010, we wanted, in part, to inspire museums to produce year-round slow looking programming – and that has happened. In fact, slow looking programming has become so mainstream that ARTualize began slow looking sessions *before* they later joined Slow Art Day. We love this development!
We also encourage you to look more at the work of artist Low Hai Hong, and read about his journey, including pioneering the painting of oil on Chinese rice paper.
For their fourth Slow Art Day, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens invited guests to slow down and enjoy the immersive indoor and outdoor mixed media art environment created by artist Isaiah Zagar. The winding spaces are covered in mosaics created with Zagar’s handmade tiles and found objects, such as folk art, bottles, bike wheels, and mirrors.
Second level of the outside sculpture garden, featuring Isaiah Zagar’s Kohler tiles. Photo by Allison Boyle, Events & Marketing Manager.
Zagar’s art can also be seen on public walls throughout the south Philadelphia community, where he has been restoring and beautifying public spaces since the 1960s.
Mosiac building exterior by Isaiah Zagar on South St, Philadelphia. Photo by Ashley Moran, Slow Art Day Editor.
After slowing down to take in the details of the space, Samantha Eusebio, Museum Educator, led a discussion on a particular section of the outdoor sculpture garden that included several large handmade tiles that Zagar made during a residency he held at the Kohler company in Wisconsin from September to November, 2001.
Samantha Eusebio and Slow Art Day participants. Photo by Ashley Moran, Slow Art Day Editor.
Samantha first asked the group of 15 participants to share themes that they noticed emerging within the tiles. She then shared a video interview of Zagar talking about his experience at Kohler.
After the video, Samantha led a discussion about Zagar’s influences for the large tiles, which happened to be the events of 911 that occurred while he was in his residency at Kohler. Being raised in Brooklyn, NY, Zagar was heavily influenced by the tragedy, and his tiles include images of airplanes and buildings. Samantha continued the discussion with the group on different ways individuals deal with grief and trauma – through art, reading, exercise, or even just slowing down.
Slow Art Day participants looking slowly at Isaiah Zagar’s large Kohler tiles. Photo by Ashley Moran.Large Tile Mosaics with Airplane Motifs by Isaiah Zagar. Photo by Ashley Moran.
Large Tile Mosaics with Airplane Motifs by Isaiah Zagar. Photo by Ashley Moran.
I had the pleasure of attending this Slow Art Day event, and it was eye opening. Even though I know that slowing down helps you see things that you are otherwise blind to, and even though I’m a longtime Slow Art Day volunteer who teaches many others about the power of slowing down to really see, I was still surprised by how much I saw that I had never seen before on multiple previous visits to The Magic Gardens. This is why Slow Art Day is an experiential program, and not primarily a theoretical one. You can understand the theory behind slow looking, but that doesn’t mean that you can see until you really slow down.
Ashley Moran, Slow Art Day Editor, immersing in the mosaicked space.
It truly is amazing what you can experience if you take the time to slow down.
We at Slow Art Day HQ look forward to visiting Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens while on our tour this summer of NYC and Philadelphia, and we can’t wait to see what they share for Slow Art Day 2023.
For their second Slow Art Day, Glen Foerd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, selected the following four works from their collection for participants to enjoy in-person over the course of 2 hours.
Manifestation with Wings (1958) by Benton Murdoch Spruance (1904-1967. Oil on canvas. Collection of Glen Foerd.Flowers in Gold Vase by (Mary) Elizabeth Price (American, 1875-1960). Oil on panel. Collection of Glen Foerd.Lady Trimleston by Sir Thomas Lawrence (British 1769 – 1830). Oil on canvas. Collection of Glen Foerd.An Archive of Desire (2020) by Jennifer Johnson (American). Mixed Media, Porcelain. Archive of Desire Installation, property of Jennifer Johnson.
Participants were provided with a flyer that included images of the pieces, and the following prompts:
Look not only at what is pictured, but how it is pictured.
What kind of colors has the artist used? Are they bright, muted, or somewhere in between?
Can you see how the color has been applied or is the color smooth and blended?
Is there a sense of deep, moderate, shallow, or indeterminate space? Is that space consistent throughout the picture?
Is space clear and well defined or atmospheric? What about how the picture was painted gives it that quality?
Is there the suggestion of a directional light source, of light coming from a one side or the other?
Can you see lines anywhere, whether painted lines or strong edges created by color-to-color areas? Where are lines used and how?
What other observations can you make?
How is the installation piece different from the paintings?
What is the unifying theme of the installation?
Afterwards, Director Ross Mitchell invited participants to the art gallery where he led a discussion on the aesthetic qualities of the pieces. The event was promoted on Glen Foerd’s website and their Instagram page a month in advance.
An Impromptu Slow Looking Session
As we at Slow Art Day HQ started to write this report, we also decided to take few moments to look slowly at all of the works and have our own discussion about them – and we encourage you all to do the same.
Before reading further, scroll back up and look… slowly. Then come back here to read a little about our thoughts.
….
We were immediately drawn to this work and to its great sense of movement. We debated whether we thought the two winged figures (angels, birds?) were drawn to the light or coming from the light. And we all enjoyed one of the rewards of slow looking at this painting – the eventual realization that there is a third figure. Overall, slowing down with this painting left us with a feeling of hope.
We debated the flatness of this painting, and whether it’s a painting of a painting. We also were drawn to, and discussed, the richness of the table – the wood is like droplets of water falling into a stream. One of us pointed out that the closely-cropped borders give a sense of tightness. And, in a lighter moment, we all agreed that we wanted to move the lit candlesticks away from the flowers. Ultimately, this work brought us feelings of autumn and a sense of sadness.
This several hundred year old painting brought up the most debate. Some of us do not like portraits of the elite, but the power of slowing down is that everyone gets to go beyond the superficial binary of “like / don’t like” – and discovers a new relationship to the artwork. As we looked and then talked, we noticed and discussed a number of things. Several of us were drawn to her facial expression. Is she smirking? We noticed her white dress, shoes, translucent sleeves, and colorful shawl (is that an LGBTQ flag?) and parasol – and also noticed how her ring is displayed prominently. Is the artist making a proto modern-day statement about gender, sexual orientation, marriage? Unlikely. We don’t know, but we are free to see what we see.
We were all immediately drawn to this piece, yet it took us to very different places. For some, this felt like a city at night, with the reflections in the table like lights in a river. For others, this was a library of mid-century modern shelves – the doors opening to reveal mirrors asking us to look deeply within ourselves.For yet others, each of these tiles represented the infinity of possibilities, including the unlimited number of genders.
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We at Slow Art Day HQ are happy to see Glen Foerd’s participation for a second year, and look forward to whatever they come up with for Slow Art Day 2023.
Johanna, Jessica, Ashley, and Phyl
P.S. – The Slow Art Day HQ team is getting together this summer in the United States and we are planning to visit Glen Foerd in addition to other NY and Philadelphia museums.
SFMOMA hosted a ticketed lunch and slow viewing session, which sold out
Chicago Art Institute trained young people to be docents for Slow Art Day engaging young people in a new way that gives them ownership over the experience
Brazil’s largest foundation of contemporary art, Inhotim, hosted its first Slow Art Day
Toronto hosted more Slow Art Day events than any city around the world
Multi-sensory sessions took off around the world (close to 25% of reporting museums did some multi-sensory work, as you can see below)
Phil Terry, Founder, delivered a keynote about Slow Art Day at a Toronto inclusive design conference
Phil and the team started visiting cities (Toronto and Philadelphia to begin with) to bring together educators and curators to strengthen the community and share best practices
We also continued to receive great press attention including from The BBC, The Art Newspaper, Smithsonian Magazine, and many local and regional offline and online newspapers, radio, and television.
We look forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary with you in 2020. Thank you for all you have done to make possible the 1,500 total Slow Art Day events over the years on every continent and land mass except for Greenland (who is up for Greenland this year?).
Best,
Phil, Ashley, Maggie, Johanna and the whole Slow Art Day central volunteer team
MIT List Visual Arts Center hosted its sixth Slow Art Day, the third led by Emily Garner, Public Programs Manager.
The event highlighted three sculptures by artists Kathleen Ryan and Kapwani Kiwanga. Participants were given a self-guided prompt sheet that suggested ways to compare and contrast the selected works. This was followed by a public talk inviting participants to discuss the works and their experience of slow-looking.
A group of visitors look at Kathleen Ryan’s sculptures at the MIT List Visual Arts Center (Courtesy MIT List Visual Arts Center)
“We are always pleased to see the visitors give time that the works demand!”
Emily Garner, Public Programs Manager
Emily mentioned that she and her colleagues “are thrilled to participate in this global event amongst some great art institutions,” and we look forward to their participation in 2020.
Hawaii State Art Museum hosted it’s fourth Slow Art Day in 2019, led by two museum guides who work for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA) arts education program.
The guides led two groups of participants through different slow-looking exercises. One group focused on portraits using Visual Thinking Strategies as prompts. The other group focused on narratives they developed while slowly looking at three selected artworks.
Afterward, participants were encouraged to share their observations and thoughts with each other, and all were given a card with Visual Thinking Strategy prompts to take home with them.
Photo of group in gallery – STATE OF ART: new work exhibit. Photo Credit: State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Photo of group by “Portrait of Edith Kanaka`ole” by Willson Stamper, oil painting, 1980. Art in Public Places Collection of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Photo Credit: State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
Mamiko Carroll, Public Information Officer for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, reported:
People who were total strangers at the beginning were sharing deep thoughts and feelings with each other at the end. Some of the participants even hugged each other goodbye!
We love to hear how Slow Art Day can bring people together around meaningfully shared experiences of slowly enjoying art, and look forward to Hawaii State Art Museum’s participation in 2020.
Newcastle Art Gallery in Newcastle, Australia hosted a successful third Slow Art Day in 2019. Guide Gerda Maeder led a group of 25 participants to slowly view and discuss three selected artworks over the course of an hour:
Gloria Petyarre’s five-panel painting “Untitled (leaves)” from the FLORIBUNDA: from the collection exhibition
Tamara Dean’s photograph “Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) in Autumn” from the FLORIBUNDA: from the collection exhibition
Takashi Hinoda’s surrealist sculpture “Around the Clock” from the SODEISHA: connected to Australia exhibition
Participants openly shared their personal impressions of each work, and imagined themselves both as the artist and as the subject. They considered sounds that might be heard, feelings that had been provoked, and imagined how it would feel to touch or make the work.
Gerda reported:
“Each work stimulated discussion on the relationship of the artwork to individual people’s lives, as well as to general topics such as lifecycles, Aboriginality, and contemporary lifestyle.”
Participants applauded the event, and left the gallery with reaffirming statements such as:
“I feel really good now.” “I enjoyed this!” “When is this happening again?”
We love to hear that Slow Art Day brings such good feelings, and look forward to Newcastle Art Gallery’s participation in 2020.
For their first Slow Art Day event, InterAccess in Toronto, Canada examined slow looking in relation to time-based media. They welcomed renowned artist Lisa Steele to the gallery to lead a two-hour tour of the exhibition of Daniel Young & Christian Giroux’s work Film Path / Camera Path with under-titles, which merges sculpture practice with film installation using high tech design and manufacturing technologies.
First, Lisa Steele led a discussion with participants on slow looking, and invited them to read aloud the artist-contributed texts that accompanied the show, written by John Barlow, Ina Blom, Eric Cazdyn, Geoffrey Farmer, Agnieszka Gratza, Daniel Hambleton, Erín Moure, Bridget Moser, Judy Radul, Patricia Reed, Reza Negarestani, Mohammad Salemy, and Michael Snow.
Next, the visitors were encouraged to take time viewing the three different components of Young & Giroux’s work in the gallery – the film screen, the mechanical sculpture, and an LED sign displaying the texts the participants had read earlier in the session.
Image by Jennifer Toole. Courtesy of InterAccess.
We love to hear how organizations promote slow looking across diverse media, and look forward to seeing what InterAccess has in store for Slow Art Day 2020.
The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, one of the Smithsonian Institution’s 19 museums in Washington, DC, participated in its second annual Slow Art Day by merging two of their existing programs that encourage slow looking: How to Look at Art and Hirshhorn/DRAW.
The museum’s Slow Art Day event led 150 participants through four simultaneous 30-60 minute sessions paired with a single artwork. Participants were given tips on how to slowly enjoy artwork without having any background information on the work. They were also provided with seats and drawing materials, and were invited to slow down and enjoy the works through drawing.
Participants drawing one of the selected works at the Hirshhorn’s Slow Art Day event.
A Smithsonian Fulbright Fellow participant stated:
“I am extremely grateful for the family-friendly drawing programs – my kids benefited more than I did! My 10 year-old spent 45 minutes drawing (she forgot that she said she was hungry) and was very proud of herself.”
We love to hear how Slow Art Day events foster joy and creativity, and can’t wait to see what The Hirshhorn has in store for Slow Art Day 2020.
For their second Slow Art Day event, the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre in Murwillumbah, Australia facilitated three slow-looking sessions focused on different exhibitions throughout the day: one focused on the full collection, a second focused on artist Maria Kontis’s drawing exhibition, and a third focused on the Margaret Olley Art Centre.
In addition to Slow Art Day, the Gallery’s Education and Audience Development Officer Jodi Ferrari has been programming Slow Art Experiences at the Gallery over the past year. Jodi reports that these experiences are valuable for a wide range of audiences, and mentioned that the gallery also uses the slow art format for engagement with visitors living with dementia and their care partners.
We love to hear how organizations extend the art of looking slowly beyond our global Slow Art Day – especially applications for health and wellness – and look forward to the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre’s participation in 2020.
