Slow down and look at the art

By Kristen Peterson

Friday, April 15, 2011 | 3 p.m.

Museum officials, theorists, artists and critics assert that art is tool to convey ideas, alter perspectives and/or transform thinking. But for that, you need time, definitely more than eight seconds, which Phil Terry, chairman of the Reading Odyssey, says is about how much time museum visitors spend looking at a work of art.

To remedy this quickie fly-by experience, Terry launched Slow Art Day, an annual April 16 event celebrated in cities worldwide, that invites museum and gallery goers to spend five-to-10 minutes looking at a half-dozen works of art. The grassroots effort, modeled in the same vein as the Slow Food Movement, relies on volunteers to invite a group of people to a museum or gallery and pay a little attention to what is before them, a crazy idea these days, but one that Slow Art proponents believe will alter your art experience.

Locally, Elisa Mondragon is organizing a meet-up at the Contemporary Arts Center on West Charleston Boulevard in the Arts District for It’s All a Blur, a multimedia exhibit featuring works by California artists, Tony Labat, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Dale Hoyt.

The event begins at 4 p.m., but visitors can arrive earlier (the gallery opens at noon). Mondragon, a volunteer for the Contemporary Arts Center, has selected seven works for participants to view. At 5 p.m., the group will head to the neighboring Bar & Bistro, break off into groups and discuss what they saw, experienced, agreed or disagreed with or even hated. It might even inspire a return trip to the gallery, which is the ultimate goal of Slow Art Day.