Category Archives: Blog

Whose eyes do you see with?

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Big Red & Shiny’s Benjamin R. Sloat interviews three Taiwanese artists, Chen Chieh-Jen, Yao Jui-Chung, and Chien-Chi Chang, and discusses the challenges of cultural misinterpretation.

Marcel Duchamp said the viewer participates in the artistic process – “the artist sets in motion a creative process that the spectators must complete.” This philosophy of including the ‘consumer’ or viewer of art in the art-making is central to our philosophy here at Slow Art Day.

But, what if the art comes from a different culture? How then do we think about the role of the viewer? Are there some pitfalls that one should seek to avoid, especially in viewing art from another culture? Read here to see what these Taiwanese artists have to say about their own work and a foreign viewership.

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

Towards a Better Understanding of Art

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Ever felt lost when looking at a work of contemporary art? Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor and former Tate gallery director, addresses this common phenomenon in his article in The Huffington Post.

He offers some solace and explanation for the confusion: “…I don’t think the real issue is about judging whether or not a brand-new piece of contemporary art is good or bad–time will undertake that job on our behalf. It is more a question of understanding where and why it fits into the modern art story.”

We agree with Gompertz that evaluating the quality of the art is not the issue and that learning about art history is important. However, we would offer a different approach. In Slow Art Day events around the world, art novices and experts alike seem to overcome confusion simply by looking for 10 minutes. Interestingly, no matter how provocative, unusual, minimalist, or indescribable the work is, Slow Art Day participants report having a good, not confusing, experience.

We hypothesize that 10 minutes of looking creates an experience where the viewer sees and feels things not immediately apparent. We believe these participants go through a process of personal discovery that, based on their feedback, seems to create a sense of joy and excitement.

We have more work to do to fully understand what works about Slow Art Day but it does seem to us that participants get excited  because they discover they actually have something to say about the art – and because they have created a connection that is emotional, intellectual, visual or spatial.

Yes, art history is important and many of the organizers of Slow Art Day are art historians or students pursuing that degree. But, the thousands of participants every year are not experts. Indeed, they are likely to be the kind of person that does not like contemporary art – unless and until they spend 10 minutes looking at a single piece.

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

“Slow Looking” for all Media

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Helen Stoilas writes in The Art Newspaper how more and more museums are focusing on performance, particularly dance, in their programming to revitalize the experience of their visitors.

Stoilas quotes PS1 associate curator Jenny Schlenzka on the significance of this trend: “We’re living in times when the object is less important. The museum is a place where these changes are being negotiated. The ephemeral is becoming much more important.”

What do you think about this trend? How do the principles of slow looking relate to art that is time-based or performed live? We would love to hear your thoughts.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Carpe Diem, Slow Art Day Style

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October 20, 2017: UPDATE – we have heard from the Susan Inglett Gallery in New York that this report from Tyler Green back in 2012 was wrong. Robyn O’Neil’s large scale work, HELL, was NOT destroyed.

Happily, HELL is on display at the Susan Inglett Gallery and can be viewed online here: http://secca.org/calendar-detail.php?EventOccId=824398142.

Always like to hear some *good* art news.

Anyone in New York should go visit the Susan Inglett Gallery and view this and other work slowly. It’s well worth it.

Thanks –

Phil

—————————————————————————————————-ORIGINAL POST from 2012

My sympathies go out to the people affected by Hurricane Sandy who are still picking up the pieces of what’s left after the storm. Many things were lost, not the least of which include artists’ studios and archival material.

Tyler Green reflects in Modern Art Notes on the situation of artist Robyn O’Neil, whose latest large scale work, HELL, was destroyed by the hurricane. It survives only as a JPEG image now — lamentable, but better than nothing.

Green points out that lost art is common in art history for a number of reasons, be it war, weather or fire. The physical presence of a work of art is actually quite fleeting, giving us all the more reason to look at art slowly and really value our time with it.

Read Green’s article in Modern Art Notes for more on O’Neil’s work and digital preservation.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Taking a Slow Look at a Museum

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When you are looking at art in a gallery or museum do you pay attention to the building or the installation set-up?

Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, writes in ArtForum about his experience of the Clyfford Still Museum, a museum built specifically to house the artwork of Clyfford Still, a first generation Abstract Expressionist. Still’s will required that his works only be shown in such a museum and so most of his work had been sealed off from the public for over 30 years.

In the article, Cooper takes us on a slow tour of the museum space and considers how the exterior, the layout, and even the wall texture, compliment the paintings on display. He also makes observations about the relationships between pieces that the installation and separation of different rooms create for the viewer.

Read Cooper’s article and visit the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver to experience the amazing architecture and paintings in person.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Slow Art Day Selected as tumblr Editor

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Good news – yesterday, the tumblr staff named us to the editorship for the Art Tag.

What does this mean? It means we now have the ability to highlight and promote art from across the worldwide tumblr community.

We’re honored to join a great group of blogs that take part in this community sharing, and we look forward to growing our presence on tumblr through our editorship.

Thanks to the staff at tumblr for recognizing the Slow Art Day tumblr blog and providing us with this important opportunity.

Alie Cline
Slow Art Day Tumblr Manager

Painting v. Photography: A Fight for the Mind’s Eye

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Do our brains naturally prefer literal photographs over abstract art? Does that set up a fight for our attention?

As we saw with the Munch blog post last week, painters have been in conversation with photography since the invention of the camera. Some have taken photography into their art practice, while others have worked to create new forms of art that transcend the literal and challenge how we see.

Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential artists in the last half of a century, has been a key contributor to this ongoing dialogue.

Since the 1980’s, Richter has made series of small scale works in which he smears paint over photographs. One of these paintings, Evening (14.9.98), was recently featured in our Slow Art Day Tumblr. The tactility of the paint and the collision of surface and representation make them perfect pieces to look at slowly.

Jim Quilty of The Daily Star wrote a review of Richter’s show earlier this year at the Beirut Art Center that displayed many of these so-called “overpainted photographs.” Quilty suggests that the contrast between the abstract paint and the literal photography set up a kind of fight for the mind’s eye – one that abstract elements can easily lose.  “…the works offer a master class in the eye’s prejudice toward figurative interpretation. The more photo there is, the greater the brain’s demand that the work be representational.”

Browse the Beirut show and read Quilty’s review to enter into this lively conversation between photography and painting. Best of all, visit Richter’s website to see for yourself his whole collection of overpainted photographs.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

 

The Unique Vision of Edvard Munch

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Sue Prideaux, author of Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, wrote a feature article on the artist for the summer edition of Tate Etc. magazine to accompany the Tate Modern’s exhibition,“Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye.”

Prideaux writes about how Munch was affected by spiritualism and use of developing camera technology. In his photography, Munch experimented with the exposure and other processes to achieve supernatural effects that suggested “spirit images” and dopplegängers. Even paintings like “Madonna” (above) were influenced by photographs that claimed to capture the aura emitted by all living beings.

Read more to learn about Edvard Munch’s unique vision and how the arts of looking and painting in the Modernist period were changed by that period’s new technology.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Time Traveling to Get a Different Perspective?

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Not all experiences of looking are the same. LACMA gallery attendant (and artist/writer) Hylan Booker reminded me of this in his recent Unframed blog post about the museum’s Unveiling Femininity in Indian Painting and Photography exhibit.

Booker travels back in time to imagine what the experience of seeing the artwork would have been like for a Victorian British or Indian male. He considers the role that eroticism and myth might have played in how the art was both seen and made.

Read Hylan’s blog post to think more about the context of looking and visit this exhibit at LACMA to take your own slow look.

– Naomi Kuo, Slow Art Day Intern

Spooky Art Skulls for Halloween

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Over on our tumblr page, we’ve been featuring spooky art to celebrate Halloween. Tumblr’s staff selected our post showcasing designer Magnus Gjoen’s skulls to feature on the tumblr radar – check out one of the skulls below, and head over to our tumblr page to see more!

Magnus Gjoen, Skull Victory Over Ignorance

Happy Halloween!