The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, a long-time participant in Slow Art Day, saw great success again this year by helping participants slow down to enjoy the single painting GoGo Days Are Over. Enjoy The Party While It Lasts by Juan Carlos Quintana.
GoGo Days Are Over. Enjoy The Party While It Lasts by Juan Carlos Quintana
Nancy Hampton, Slow Art Day docent, led an open-ended discussion with a group of 10 visitors. Nancy reported that two of the participants, who lead a program for incarcerated women, had deep revelations about art and slowing down. “They saw how art can have a positive effect…[and] were excited about the Slow Art Day approach and how they might delve into looking and wondering.”
We love to hear how Slow Art Day has such applicability for a wide variety of audiences, including the incarcerated. In fact, several years ago an artist in Rome led a Slow Art Day in a prison there, which was reported to be a very powerful experience.
We look forward to Crocker Art Museum’s participation in 2020 – and to more ways to bring slow looking to more people in more settings all over the world.
For their first Slow Art Day, the Byron School of Art Project Space in Mullumbimby – a small Australian town well-known for its artist colony – combined several multi-sensory activities along with food and yoga.
They started Slow Art Day with an artist talk by Marlene Sarroff whose exhibition 365 Days: You Get What You Choose is a meditation on everyday practice. Marlene spoke about her long history of working and exhibiting in artist-run spaces, about finding materials whilst not seeking them, and also about being awake to possibility.
Marlene Sarroff speaking about 365 Days: You Get What You Choose
After Marlene’s talk, participants began something organizers called The Slow Art Challenge. The challenge started with five minutes of silent looking at one artwork, then followed that with a group discussion. Next, participants took a few moments to enjoy cups of tea together, and then reconvened in pairs to observe a second chosen work in silence. For the final segment, they listened to music while looking at another artwork, and then held another discussion after that multi-sensory experience.
Artist Marlene Sarroff participating in Slow Art Day
And as if this were not enough, their Slow Art Day finished with an evening Slow Flow Yoga Class led by yoga instructor Shien Chee from Seeker + Kind yoga studio, their neighbor two doors down. Chee and Meredith Cusack, BSA Project Space Coordinator, wanted to integrate yoga, sound, smells, and sight. They came up with the idea of using the art as a way to talk about drishti (gaze point). As a result, Chee built her class around changing drishti – looking at different works, but also from different positions, and heights. Wow.
Instructor Shien Chee from Seeker + Kind Yoga Studio leading participants in Slow Flow Yoga Class
The Byron School of Art Project Space had such a good – and creative – first Slow Art Day that participants asked if they would do the exercises for other exhibitions, which they plan to do. They also look forward to participating in Slow Art Day 2020 and we look forward to having them back. They are a wonderful addition to the global slow looking movement.
The Hermitage Museum in Norfolk, VA saw a terrific turnout for their Slow Art Day in 2019. 50+ participants attended and enjoyed the art of slowing down.
To generate a strong turnout, they decided to offer free admission for Slow Art Day participants, and they also increased social media promotion.
Participants gave quite positive feedback including this visitor:
“I really enjoyed the concept, and taking the time to [slow down]… it forces you to really take in what you’re viewing.”
The museum looks forward to participating in Slow Art Day 2020.
The Columbus Museum goes live for Slow Art Day with an exhibit they call The Patient Eye. Designed by artist Jonathan VanDyke, The Patient Eye is a live art performance where he views 16 quilts for 3 hours each over a 48 hour period. VanDyke will remain silent as visitors come through and stand or sit next to him and also observe the art.
VanDyke’s performance is currently running during the museum’s hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will conclude April 12 with a public dialogue with him and museum administrators.
With 280 artworks on display at any given time, the Dennos Museum in Traverse City, Michigan wants to help its visitors slow down and take in just a few for Slow Art Day.
“Going to a museum and trying to take in all of the works of art can be just a little bit too much to handle,” said curator of education, Jason Dake, in an interview with the local NPR station.
Helping visitors combat that feeling of being overwhelmed is one of the main reasons we started Slow Art Day back in 2009 and are glad that Jason Dake and his team are leading Slow Art day in Traverse City, Michigan.
If you are near there next weekend, we hope you head to the Dennos Museum and slow down to see just a few of its 280 artworks.
A report from host and museum educator Nina Montijn in Amstelveen, Netherlands:
We had a great Slow Art Day at the Cobra Museum for Modern Art!
In three organized art walks, visitors were challenged to look slowly, to genuinely take their time and lose themselves in the works of art. Participants looked with awe at four selected works, discussed with each other, learned from each other.
For those who preferred to look on their own we created two guides with several tips. Also we distributed notebooks and pens, so everyone could write down their discoveries. Quickly there were visitors watching and writing vigorously everywhere.
Afterwards visitors could chat about their experiences in the museum café whilst enjoying a complimentary beverage. Here we heard many enthusiastic stories about the tour. Even works of art that didn’t seem so interesting at first, turned out to be quite captivating.
In Chichester, England, Slow Art Day participants communed with five artworks in the cathedral and bishop’s palace.
Host Naomi Billingsley, the Bishop Otter Scholar at Chichester Cathedral, writes in her blog: “Although the Slow Art Day initiative is secular in origin … it translated well into a sacred space, and some of the participants said that they found it a spiritual experience. I’m thinking about experimenting further with this format, and perhaps trying an even slower viewing experience (people said that ten minutes went quickly).”
She shared participants’ comments, among them: Slow Art Day “created a space to see new things in works seen many times before.” And: “It is the joy of Chagall that stays with me.”
We had a wonderful Slow Art Day at HAM Helsinki Art Museum! People occupying the floors of the big gallery to draw on a huge paper together (some even for hours!), DJ playing songs fitting the day’s theme through headphones to our visitors and slow watching on our new HAMfulness guided tours.
— Aino-Marja Miettinen of Helsinki Art Museum
From Canberra, Australia, Annette Twyman of the National Portrait Gallery reports “great success” on Slow Art Day:
The participants, all strangers to one another, took their stools, floor plans and notebooks and headed into the gallery space. After 15 minutes with each of five portraits, we met for coffee, tea, biscuits and a chat about their experience of slow art in the NPG. Among their comments:
“I have never done anything like this before, I have sat very still and after a while I really started to look; it was great. Some of the portraits were very detailed and symbolic and some seemed simpler, but every one was interesting. I could have spent longer …”
“I would not have chosen these portraits, but … they made me look; one was difficult and I stayed with it, now especially after our discussion I am glad that I did that.”
“The portraits said a lot about women, just the change between the early placid portrait of Ann Lawrence (1841) and then penetrating Norah Heysen (1934) and then the video portrait of Cate Blanchett (2008), a big difference. But after a while I noticed maybe Ann Lawrence was thinking, her eyes looked very different from her mouth; maybe she was not happy being so passive.”
“I have enjoyed our talk afterwards, everyone is so full of their own ideas; it is very good to be able to have that quiet look on your own at the art without anyone else and then talk together afterwards.”
