Author Archives: Phyl Terry

Viewing Art, Being Present

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From time to time, we post short articles from Slow Art Day hosts. The article below is by veteran Slow Art Day host, Paul Langton.

A rainy day. I am early for an appointment. An opportunity to go to a gallery for forty or fifty minutes, without expectations? I realise don’t actually know what is currently on at the gallery.

Fortunately I listen to my intuitive self, and a few moments later find myself in the Whitechapel Gallery, exploring Mel Bochner’s fascinating work. But, I become aware that his exhibition would need more time than I feel I can allow. I then go into a room with a single sculpture. A tree. Immediately fascinated I walk around the sculpture. I notice the materials used – gold leaf, bronze. I feel at home in the space and decide to spend some time in this room.

Spazio di Luce by Giuseppe Penone at the Whitechapel Gallery (image from the Whitechapel Gallery website – click the image to visit)

A well-placed bench allows for some slow art thinking. Who is this by? What is it doing here? I walk around, I sit down. I walk around again. I go and read the information about the sculpture. I ask the attendant if I can I touch it.

The exhibition is very peaceful. Occasionally people come in and I notice their reactions to the piece, yet I am pre-occupied by my own thoughts. I feel I am in the right place at the right time, as though I was meant to see this piece today. I love the way each time I view the tree it look different and I love the light further illuminating the gold leaf, shining light on this wintry day. I walk alongside it and see it from different angles. I don’t hug but I do touch.

The sculpture, I find out, is Spazio di Luce (Space of Light) by the Italian artist Giuseppe Penone and is a Bloomberg Commission, in the Whitechpael Gallery until September 2013. Space and light, they seem ideal words. It’s good to find out it will be here for a few months, and another visit will be possible. I realise I may have seen some of Penone’s work before as part of Arte Povera at Tate Modern, but I couldn’t be specific.

I have been thinking of trees in the last few weeks and the importance of trees – there was a fascinating discussion on the radio the previous month about trees with James Aldred and Mark Tully – and this sculpture adds an extra dimension to my current feelings and thoughts. I reflect on nature, art, myself, others, and art as part of life.

The light in the title becomes so appropriate as I leave the gallery, literally feeling lightened and uplifted. I then wonder on how something so beautiful and fascinating just appeared in my day without notice. In my head I thank the artist and the gallery, for being presented with and for being present, for some time, with this wonderful sculpture. Please visit if you can.

(If you are not able to visit a video of the artist talking about the work is on line: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/the-bloomberg-commission-giuseppe-penone-spazio-di-luce).

The Whitechapel Gallery is one of 160+ Slow Art Day venues for 2013. Click here to find out more or register.

– Paul Langton

Note: An earlier version of this piece first appeared in Paul’s blog: http://artsandmoresw4.wordpress.com    

Slow Me The Way – Manhattan Magazine Feature Article on Slow Art Day

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by Tom Clavin
Published in Manhattan Magazine: December 2012

Don’t race through that museum tour: Take your time, take it easy, and take it all in. At least, that’s what the Slow Art movement would like you to do. Here, Tom Clavin explains the burgeoning campaign…

Read the full feature article on the Manhattan Magazine website 

Slow Forest Year

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You think looking at an individual painting or sculpture for 10 minutes seems long? How about a year?

James Gorman reviews a new book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, in the New York Times Science Times today. It turns out the author, David Haskell, spent a year slowly watching a patch of nature.

Haskell, a scientist, “did no experiments and no research…He sat, and watched, and listened” for this yearlong meditative study.

For example, one day he spent an hour slowly observing squirrels. That simple activity helped him realize something obvious and profound. Like a Slow Art Day participant who discovers a color, texture or other seemingly hidden element, Haskell joyfully discovered that “squirrels appear to enjoy the sun, a phenomenon that occurs nowhere in the curriculum of modern biology.”

I’m getting the book today. I recommend you do the same.

– Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder

It Takes Multiple Visits To Be A Lady

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I liked Thomas Micchelli’s review of To Be A Lady, a new show in Manhattan, for many reasons including that he begins the article by describing something we in the Slow Art Day movement often experience: it takes a few visits to really see an exhibit.

In his opening paragraphs, he takes pains to go into detail about why the review itself is based on his second visit.

I specify my second visit because my first was preoccupied with the show’s startling scale, ambition and quality.

I also often find that the first visit to an exhibit is preoccupying. It’s hard to see the individual pieces of art.

And this is an especially important consideration with a show like this one, which aims to make visible what’s been too-much hidden from public view: the contribution and impact of many women artists.

The review is worth reading – and the show reviewed is certainly worth seeing slowly at least twice.

For more on the show, which is open until January 2013, click here.

– Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder

The art of looking at art – Met Director Thomas Campbell

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Metropolitan Museum of Art Director, Thomas P. Campbell, talks about the art of asking basic questions and of really looking at art.

Of interest, he refers to an Italian art professor, a passionate teacher, who reminded him that “all art was once contemporary” and implored him not to get caught up in art world jargon but rather to use his eyes, to really look, to ask basic questions and to try to *see* the art.

ARTInfo: Slow Art Day Fights Visual Grazing With a Deep Dive Into Museums

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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.

Read the full feature article on ARTInfo

Slow Art Day is today all over the world!

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Slow Art Day 2012 is today, Saturday, April 28.

Events have already occurred in China, India, and all over Australia. As I write this, Slow Art Day events are happening in Rome, Paris, London, Copenhagen and all over Europe.

Slow Art Day events are about to start in North and South America.

Have a good and slow day of looking and loving art.

– Phil

Phil Terry
Founder, Slow Art Day

P.S. If you need anything or have any questions about today’s events, get in touch via e-mail here.

Slow Art Day Video

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Watch

Created by Scribbler’s Club, hosts for Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Slow Art Day.

Berkeley, California

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Greve in Chianti, Italy

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