Category Archives: Blog

Turin Point: My Face-off with Franz Kline

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Slow Art Day has asked its 2013 college interns to write short summaries of their own experiences looking slowly at artworks of their choosing.

Meandering the sparsely populated gallery on a normal Tuesday afternoon, it is nearly impossible to not be transfixed towards Franz Kline’s Turin (1960). As I draw closer to the magnetic canvas, it’s massive presence causes Turin to loom over, dwarfing me with impressive size. My first instinct in the face of such a monolithic painting is to scatter to any corner of the exhibit. Instead, I decide to stand my ground in the front of the gallery. This bolstering of will initiated by the intimidating strokes anchors my legs directly in front of the canvas. Perhaps my initial reaction can be distilled with a measured and slow look.

Within the first minute I am already wavering.  The raw, impressive energy of Turin is overwhelming head on. I am used to standing off on the side, not facing a work so directly. I cannot afford to be passive, however, I have to engage with what I am staring down before me. Instead of an impartial sweeping glance across the room, I find myself fixated. Here, I am held captive.

I am drawn first towards the thick, heavy vortex of black paint. All I see is black, as my eyes are downcast towards the frenetic yet firm grip of the brushstrokes. The distracting murmurs of the gallery’s other inhabitants echoing in the spacious gallery begin to dissipate. As far as I am concerned, I am in solitude with Turin.

I become more preoccupied with trying to discern how brooding columns of pigment can pair so well with fibrous sweeping gestures. I follow the strong, deliberate beams outward until I must step back and shift my weight in order to follow their lead. As the concentrated black swirl leads out in angular, cantilevered bars, I exit the vortex that had first captured me, my eyes watching the articulate arching reaching outward. I soon realize that Turin, in fact, has an abundance of white space.

By standing my ground, I have the revelation that Turin exists in a state of contradictions. It appears both dark and light, crowded and sparse, belabored and spontaneous. I realize that there is a wealth of information behind it’s initial intimidating stature. With this reveal, it becomes obvious that Kline’s abstraction is a well-crafted process revealing a plethora of competing elements.

I step away with satisfaction, having spent a good deal of time exploring the varied and numbered passageways within Turin. Without stopping and looking unflinchingly at the canvas, I doubt I would have been able to fully appreciate Turin’s dynamism, or been able to see the fluidity in his taut lines.

-Karen Trop, Bennington College

 

[Franz Kline’s Turin (1960) was viewed at the Allentown Art Museum’s exhibition: Franz Kline: Coal and Steel. The Allentown Art Museum is a participating venue for Slow Art Day in 2013.]

That Which We Call “The Rose” – Slow Art with Jay DeFeo

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Slow Art Day has asked its 2013 college interns to write short summaries of their own experiences looking slowly at artworks of their choosing. 

I recently went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), to visit their currrent exhibition “Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective,” which I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. While there, I did a compressed version of a Slow Art Day event with one of my friends; we spent about 15 minutes looking at DeFeo’s piece “The Rose,” and afterwards sat in the (excellent) SFMOMA cafe to discuss the work.

My familiarity with DeFeo’s work is fairly recent. I attend Mills College in Oakland, CA, where DeFeo taught for several years in the 1980s, so when the retrospective at SFMOMA went up it was heavily promoted on the Mills campus. In November, when the exhibition opened, I attended a lecture that art and music critic Greil Marcus gave at Mills called “Jay DeFeo and All That Jazz,” about the relationship between DeFeo’s art-making process and contemporary jazz music (Marcus was also a contributor to the exhibition catalogue accompanying the DeFeo retrospective). While the lecture was certainly eye-opening, when viewing the exhibition I found myself wishing that her work was entirely new to me, so that I could experience it without any preconceptions.

Jay DeFeo, “The Rose” 1958 – 66, image via the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

DeFeo’s piece “The Rose” is a colossus at more than 10 feet in height and weighing in at over a ton; the paint on its surface is more than a foot thick in places. DeFeo spent over seven years working on the painting but never considered it finished. Her work on the painting was interrupted in the 1960s when she was forced to move out of her apartment in San Francisco, where she had worked on the painting (according to Greil Marcus’ lecture, she was evicted because neighbors complained of her and her husband’s eccentricity). Her new apartment didn’t have space for such a large painting, so it went into storage for several years. When DeFeo was moving, a construction crew had to be called in to pry the painting from the walls and take it out of the building via a crane and the fire escape.

In the retrospective, “The Rose” is presented in such a way that it seems almost diminutive at first glance. Set apart from the rest of the exhibition in a sort of alcove, with unusually dim lighting, the staging is supposed to mimic how the work would have looked when in its original location, a wall in DeFeo’s apartment. From a distance, “The Rose” looks small and unimpressive, but up close, its sheer bulk is overwhelming. The many layers of paint that make up the work cause it to protrude so far out from the canvas that it appears to be free-standing, blurring the line between painting and sculpture. My only problem with the SFMOMA’s presentation of the work was that the separate room it was in prevented much freedom of movement around the work, so that I couldn’t view it from as many different angles as I would have liked (that didn’t seem to discourage creativity among other viewers though – a museum guard told me that she had once seen a man try to stand on his head to see the painting from a different perspective).

Even after spending over 15 minutes with the painting, I’m still not sure what to make of it. As the most famous of DeFeo’s works, it was the one that most of the viewers were flocking to, and they all seemed to be suffering from the syndrome that occurs when you encounter any famous work of art in a museum, where you’re drawn to a work of art simply because it’s famous, and not for anything inherent in the piece itself (I call this the Mona Lisa syndrome). I felt the same way at first too, excited to be seeing the one work of DeFeo’s that is regularly featured in art history textbooks. But after a few minutes it made me sad more than anything else. The layers of cracked and fractured paint dividing the painting, once white but turned gray and black in places, brought to mind the ruins of a once-great cathedral. I couldn’t help but think of how DeFeo had spent over seven years of her life working on “The Rose,” and she never even got to finish it. She also didn’t live to see the work find fame – it was exhibited only once during her lifetime, at the Pasadena Museum of Art, and subsequently bought by the San Francisco Art Institute, where it was installed in the wall of a conference room. There, it sustained such damage that a false wall was built to cover the painting, obscuring it from view. In the 1990s, a decade after DeFeo’s death, it was bought and restored by the Whitney Museum in New York.

I thought it was apt to do a slow art viewing experience with “The Rose” given the extraordinary amount of time that DeFeo devoted to it. However, this was an instance where spending 15 minutes looking at a single work of art didn’t feel like enough time. I kept thinking about how DeFeo spent every day for seven years in front of this piece, and so it felt like a disservice in a way for me to only spend 10 or 15 minutes. I’m planning on returning to the exhibition soon, to spend more time with “The Rose” but also with the other works in the exhibition, a couple of which caught my eye. If you’re around San Francisco (the retrospective will also be opening at the Whitney in late February), I highly recommend checking it out to form your own impression of DeFeo’s work.

[Jay DeFeo’s The Rose (1958-66) was viewed in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective.]

– Maggie Freeman, Mills College

Experiencing the Slow Art Day Movement

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Slow Art Day has asked its 2013 college interns to write short summaries of their own experiences looking slowly at artworks of their choosing. 


One afternoon, I spend 20 minutes looking at Rufino Tamayo’s El Hombre En La Ventana (1980). At first glance, it appears that the man is only momentarily looking outside the window. But after further observation, I come to believe that this man is not just casually looking but staring as if looking out into the distance, out into the future.

As I look more, I reflect on how the style of the piece is important. The style is Mexican – I know because of the style and materials of the blinds. These are traditional Mexican wooden blinds, not conventional American plastic ones. I also begin to think about this Mexican man. Perhaps he is looking to the future because he is a father and has a family that he needs to support. This piece is very simple but seems to suggest a deep topic in a very simple yet impactful way.

I stand back and also think about where I am seeing this painting. The Vincent Price Art Museum, in partnership with the East Los Angeles Community College, seeks to serve the culture and history of the Mexican community both in Los Angeles and in Mexico. Through a motif of modernism, this museum and its varying collections offers a new view of modernism that reflects the local community. So maybe this Mexican man is at a window at his home in Mexico or maybe he is here in East LA.

As the minutes tick by, I begin to reflect on the moment the painting was created: 1980. The U.S. and many other parts of the world are in recession. Many people, including perhaps this man in the painting, were thinking of moving for jobs. Even within the U.S. a big migration was beginning from the rust belt to the sun belt.  I think more about the body language of the man. He has his hands on his hips. I think he is ambitious. He wants control of his future for himself and his family. He is very similar to many other men at this time because they all wanted something better for themselves.

I’m amazed at what I’ve seen in 20 minutes. In really looking slowly at this piece of artwork, I have thought about much that would have gone unnoticed. Looking slowly is a great way to truly evaluate and appreciate any artwork and was certainly true for this Tamayo. Next time you are in Los Angeles, I recommend you visit not just the big museums but come to the Vincent Prince and take some time to really see.

[Rufino Tamayo’s Hombre en la ventana (1980) was viewed in the Vincent Price Art Museum’s exhibition: The Views of Mexican Modernism.]

-Cristina Gonzalez, UCLA

Artist Mark Meyer and the Art of Slow Looking

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Katie Hosmer at My Modern Met describes the experience of Alaska-based photographer Mark Meyer: each morning, he captures an image of the view out his bedroom window. From falling leaves to snow to frost, Meyers freezes a moment in time and allows for the luxury of a slow look at what would normally be a fleeting moment.

Image by Mark Meyer

About the project, Meyer says, “It has gradually turned into a minimalist personal project that’s become a reminder to myself that even the simplest things are interesting if you pay attention. I’ve found it to be good way to start each day, an exercise in seeing and visually exploring a single subject and noticing how it gradually changes over time.”

Image by Mark Meyer

Be sure to look at Mark Meyer’s website showcasing his other photography, and thanks to Katie Hosner at My Modern Met for the original article about Meyer’s work.

– Alie Cline

SFMOMA Google+ Hangout Features Slow Art Day

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Slow Art Day Social Media Manager, Alie Cline, was invited by SFMoMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) to speak on a Google+ panel that was part of their first-ever crowdsourced program, #ArtMicroHubs.

Led by Suzanne Stein head of community engagement at SFMoMA, her colleagues at SFMoMA, and people like our own Alie Cline, the discussion is well worth watching.

Alie (at about 42 minutes in) talks about Slow Art Day in the context of this broader conversation about social media, visitor engagement and innovative programs. “Slow Art Day”helps people feel more relaxed in a museum space. Just the act of looking can spark conversations and a more personal response to art that doesn’t feel as intimidating.”

Be sure to check out Alie’s great work on our Tumblr blog here: http://SlowArtDay.Tumblr.com

And also look at Alie’s Cave to Canvas Tumblr
http://www.cavetocanvas.com

– Dana-Marie Lemmer, Slow Art Day Coordinator

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

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

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

An Invitation to a Conversation

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If two works of art could talk to each other, what would they say? The Fisher Landau Center for Arts in Long Island City explores this idea in their current show called “Visual Conversations.” In it, free-standing sculpture is placed next to works hung on walls to create conversations between each pair of artworks.

The show intentionally invites viewers to draw their own connections and to think about how the meaning of each piece is affected by the one next to it. Active and creative viewer participation seems to be key to the experience of this exhibition.

Joe Fusaro writes in Art:21 about how he’s using this exhibit with his art students.

He’s asking them to think about questions like “Can works of art ‘speak’ to the viewer or have ‘conversations’ with other works?” and then to create their own works of art that talk back to one of the paired pieces they saw in the show.

At Slow Art Day, we are all about encouraging museum goers to look slowly, experience and “talk back” to the art. If you get a chance, visit the Landau Center for this exhibit’s last week or check back online to see if Joe Fusaro shares what his students created in conversation with this show.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern; edited by Phil Terry, Slow Art Day Founder