Celebrate Slow Art Day One Saturday in April
Slow Art Day happens on a Saturday in April
How do you visit art galleries or museums? If you’re like most people you breeze through as many rooms & pieces as you can manage in the time you have. Slow Art Day wants to change that.
According to a study from 2017, the average person spends less than 30 seconds looking at a great piece of art. And part of that time is spent taking a selfie with it!
But for one day in April museums around the world invite people to spend up to 10 minutes with just a few, pre-chosen pieces of art. Then spend some time discussing each piece.
The day happens every year in April, apparently on a Saturday. Some sources we’ve seen suggest it’s the 1st Saturday in April, but in 2018 it was the 2nd Saturday. So the best way to not miss it is probably to just keep an eye on the day’s official website.
Why Slow Art
Because it takes time to really see a piece. Sure, you can see the basic outline pretty quickly. But the longer you look, the more details you discover.
And you just might discover you actually “understand” art better than you thought! Or appreciate it. Or both. No “expert” opinions or explanations needed!
(Why do you need to understand it anyway? Isn’t appreciating it enough? We think so.).
The day has its beginnings in an experiment by Phil Terry, who decided to spend a whole hour looking at one piece of art. He found the experience so powerful he decided others needed to feel the same.
He had friends join him for a couple more experiments in 2009. Those went so well that he created Slow Art Day. It took a few years for museums to come on board, but now the day is part of many museums’ regular yearly programs.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial/official holiday.
Celebrating Slow Art Day
This one’s simple! Take some time to really look at & see one or more pieces of art.
See if a museum near you is having an official event and make plans to join.
Of course, you don’t have to join an event. You can get a lot out of viewing art slowly by yourself, too. And again, you have a choice of vising in person or viewing virtually.
Now, you can probably get a lot more detail with an in-person visit. But if that’s not possible for some reason, there’s nothing wrong with a virtual visit, especially for museums & galleries in other countries you may never get to see (or at least not any time soon).
Many larger museums have been adding digital galleries in recent years, so there’s a good chance you can find one or more pieces you’d love to see.
- Do a search for your favorite museum or gallery’s name plus “virtual tour” or “virtual gallery” (without the quotes).
- Many institutions have also partnered with Google Arts & Culture to offer virtual collections. In some cases these institutions offer collections both on Google and their own websites.
If you’re attending an official in-person event the museum will have a discussion about the pieces you’ve viewed, possibly over lunch. Virtual events may or may not offer some type of webinar/chat discussion. The virtual event listings we’ve checked out seem to be mostly do-it-yourself events. But there’s nothing wrong with that!
Will you be taking some time to really study one or more pieces of art for Slow Art Day this year?
[…] Slow Art Day: This is a day for taking the time to look at and appreciate art. Slowly. No zipping through art galleries to see as much as possible. Instead, fully appreciate just a few pieces. Many of the physical events have sadly but understandably been cancelled. But many museums & galleries offer digital versions of their collections. And some are even holding virtual events for the day. […]