Slow Art: "Seeing More, Looking Less"

Every aspect of contemporary life seems rushed. Great ideas, social gatherings, fitness, upcoming trends, visits to blockbuster art exhibitions, and even new artworks need to be effective and, most importantly, delivered in record time. Fortunately, an alternative way of looking at life, known as the slow life movement, has made its way from food to art. This movement emphasizes the importance of taking the time to savor a farm-to-table seasonal dish or a work of art, whether it is the Mona Lisa or one by an emerging artist. While this approach may sound like a luxury, it is much needed. Even if we are always on the go, our bodies and minds often end up demanding, if not clamoring, for a break. This is precisely why slow art is more relevant than ever, especially since studies revealed that while the average time museum visitors spend before an artwork has not changed much in over a decade (roughly 27 seconds), it now involves taking a selfie, which alters the experience and causes increased traffic.

How the Slow Life Movement Came to Be

"Praise of Slow," a 2004 book by Canadian journalist Carl Honoré, is viewed as the foundational text behind a movement that had been around since at least the 1980s, initially in the gastronomic sector as a protest against what was referred to as “the McDonaldization of the global diet.” Slowness is “doing everything at the correct speed: quickly, slowly, or whatever pace works best. Slow means being present, living each moment fully, putting quality before quantity in everything,” Honoré states on his website. Through this vision, Honoré strives to defy the notion that slowness equals laziness and instead argues that it enhances the possibility of focusing on one thing at a time without always thinking about the next deadline, the next hour, or tomorrow. When viewing daily life through this lens, it is possible to feel more connected to everything we do. Taking breaks in the day stops feeling like wasted time, and no guilt is associated with simply enjoying what is going on before our very eyes.

Slow Art: A Way of Looking and Creating

In the early 1990s, American artist Tim Slowinski registered the domain slowart.com and, years before, scribbled the phrase "Art is a way of life, a method of being, a way of perceiving the world" on his studio walls, according to the artist’s website. However, only recently have scholars from varied fields, ranging from psychology to literary and museum studies, increasingly explored what slow art is and its benefits. For instance, since the early 2000s, Professor James O. Pawelski, Director of Education for the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has analyzed the effect of staring at a single artwork for up to twenty minutes (rather than 30 seconds or less) on its perception, concluding that it increases the odds of connecting with the artwork. “But what happens, of course, is you actually begin to be able to see what you’re looking at,” Pawelski said to The New York Times in 2014. This viewpoint reinforces previous research, such as a 1993 study led by Stephen Kaplan at the University of Michigan, which suggested museums can serve as restorative environments and, in some cases, bring calm and peace.

Moving ahead in time, in 2017, Jonathan Reed, the Arthur and Fanny Dole Professor of English at Pomona College, published the book titled "Slow Art: The Experience of Looking, Sacred Images to James Turrell," which sought to explore ‘slow art’ as a new aesthetic field. For Reed, slow art is named “the dynamic, intimate encounter between object and observer." Artworks, he explained in this Brooklyn Rail piece, “wait mutely – patiently – for us to animate them.” As this ArtNet News article reveals, for Reed, the aesthetic field is a product of Modernity when society progressively accelerated the pace of daily life to the alarming levels we all experience today. He argues that this type of experience may be compared to religious practices during the ages of faith. Regardless of whether one agrees with Reed’s views, slow art certainly aligns with the recent rise of mindfulness as a tool for bringing awareness back to our lives. Slow looking “intersects with ideas around mindfulness and well-being, comparing it to sensory mindfulness meditation where your focus of attention is in the moment and not on external ideas or thoughts,” Rebecca Chamberlain, a psychology lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, explained to the Tate.

As proof of the growing exposure of slow art, also in 2017, Swedish art dealer Michael Findlay published "Seeing Slowly – Looking At Modern Art," which presents what the author views as an inclusive way for everyone, independently of their background, to enjoy and truly “see” Modern art. “The most important thing for us to grasp,” Findlay writes on his website, “is that the essence of a great work of art is inert until it is seen. Our engagement with the work of art liberates its essence.” More so, in 2022, Slow Art was the main subject of a symposium held in Santander, Spain, where both Carl Honoré and Phil Terry, the founder of Slow Art Day, were present, as explained in this Forbes article. This is relevant because it was perhaps the first public conversation, including specialists from varied fields, that discussed these topics.

Remarkably, while according to the literature on the topic, slowness seems to be more the responsibility of the observer than of the artwork itself, some artists like Colombian landscape painter Daniela Mejía have also taken this approach when patiently creating dreamy landscapes loosely based on the trips she has made through her native land. To explain her process, the artist shared with me the Roman proverb "Festina Lente" (Hurry up, slowly), which perfectly encapsulates how creativity, or any activity for that matter, can be enhanced when given the time it needs instead of rushing through our to-do list. However, when dealing with slow art, the endless hours spent on creating a project, which have been highlighted in group exhibitions such as Slow Art, staged at the Swedish National Museum in 2013, are not as important as being present and giving each project the time it demands.

It is also worth mentioning that the term has been met with resistance by some art critics like Enrique Martinez Celaya, who have questioned its validity. “The first problem with the idea of ‘slow art’ is the implication that there is another kind of art. What would that art be? Fast art? Moreover, what is the speed that ‘slow’ refers to?” the art critic wrote in this Brooklyn Rail article. Adding, “Art is not a type of activity, but a specific category of experience that allows no modifiers—not slow art or deep art or fun art.” Here, the commentary seems to be towards the term itself, as a valid art category, and not towards the viewer’s attitude or the intention of the artist.

Slow Art Initiatives: Slow Art Day and Slow Art Workshops

In 2009, Phil Terry, founder of the Reading Odyssey and CEO of Collaborative Gain, launched The Slow Art Day, an ongoing initiative intending to inspire art organizations to develop programming that facilitates slow-looking and active dialogue after the viewing experience. "Many people don't know how to look at and love art and are disconnected from it," Phil Terry, the founder of Slow Art Day, said to the BBC. "Visitors to galleries often see art from their iPads or mobile phones, and slow art is an antidote to that. Slowing down helps us to see art in a new way that energizes rather than demoralizes.” Each year, more public and private museums in Europe, Australia, the US, and other regions have joined the project. The last edition, held in April 2024, involved events at 173 art venues, according to the Slow Art Day’s website. The programming offered by each institution ranges from 10-minute visits to one artwork, followed by a group discussion, to in-gallery sketching, self-guided tours, workshops, and handouts that promote slow-looking. Terry summed up his vision to the Washington Post: “Part of [Slow Art Day’s] mission is to make the art experience more inclusive by creating a context where people will include themselves. For people who don’t feel like the traditional Western museums are designed for them, it gives them a way into the art experience. If you just slow down and look at any kind of art, you discover that you can build a relationship with it.”

Next to the Slow Art Day, other art lovers have thought of projects to enable this way of experiencing. Such is the case of art critic Susan Moore, who in 2017 launched The Slow Art Workshop (SAW), a non-profit venture that harnesses the goodwill of knowledgeable auction house experts, specialist dealers, and museum curators who participate in workshops favoring slow-looking and even allowing small groups to handle some artworks, as described in this Financial Times article. SAW “was set up to give people of any age curious about any kind of art the opportunity not only of looking at it but—no less importantly—handling it, within a small group,” the project’s website states.

Takeaways from the Slow Art Dilemma

It must be said that this approach acts as a countercurrent to how major museums around the world are visited, which also affects the funding they receive from the government, patrons, and ticketing fees. For this reason, while refreshing, the possibility of replicating the “slow art day model” on a large scale seems, well, remote. Regardless, it is still possible to make the individual choice of visiting museums at quieter times and substantially shorten the bucket list of artworks or sections to see next time you visit enormous museums like the Louvre, Prado, or The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We all have experienced that anxious feeling of wanting to see it all. But, do we “really

” see it all, even if we spend hours in a museum or rush around city sites?

Some recommendations, many of which are shared by this New York Times article, are:

• Pick a wing or section and wander, mentally noting which works are appealing or stand out. Then return to one or two that caught your attention and look at them for at least 10 minutes.
• You can also make a sprawling museum digestible by doing some research ahead of time and seeking out only those works that dovetail with your interests, be it a love of music, cats, dogs, or horses (many museums have online resources).
• Try to visit museums at quieter times if possible and decide if you should see the most famous pieces or discover less-visited sections that will allow you to freely enjoy them without the crowds.
• Take a small notebook and pencil with you where you can either write down or scribble your impressions.
• Put your phone down and try to take in the experience.
• Let your eyes rest. Try resting your eyes by sipping a coffee or simply closing them.

As Susan Moore said in a TED talk, the idea is to try to “see more and look less.”