Most people, when they see a painting for the first time, spend a few seconds appreciating the artwork and move on. When Arden Reed, a professor of English at Pomona College, saw Édouard Manet’s Young Lady in 1866 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan for the first time, in the year 2000, he ended up thinking about it for eight years.
Slow Art explores how engaging with art slowly can shift the viewer’s experience in myriad ways. Reed cites the artist James Turrell’s experiments with light and space as examples of artwork that has slowness built into it. But he acknowledges that taking in art slowly and patiently is a shifting and sometimes adversarial process.
“Slow Art: Looking Long and Hard in the Age of Instant Everything” Sat 11/12, 11:30 AM, Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, chicagohumanities.org, $12, $10 members, $5 students and teachers.
