wagers

TITLE AND SCARY DRAW-IN

AGNES MARTIN

The term Slow Art Movement has been around for a while. It’s not a movement as such, but a loose term that aims to capture a deeper feeling when experiencing art. It can seem an incongruous label since it demands active passivity, but get over that little bump in the road and ahead lies a deeper, more profound experience.

Slow Art is less concerned with the agency of an artwork than with the devoted attentiveness of the viewer and the sympathetic conditions created by the artworks for a more profound experience. The philosophy is simple; spend more time with fewer artworks. Slow down, take your time, look more, contemplate more, feel deeper.

Some commentators say it’s replacing a feeling that can be evoked by religious spaces or monumental natural structures. Others say that it’s more a wellbeing experience that promotes good mental health. Critics counter by shouting “fad and fashion.”

This process, that today galleries and museums are beginning to actively promote, has its roots in artists like Agnes Martin. Born in 1912 in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, Martin’s work is often described as being “barely there,” a powerful, steadying experience, like sitting in silence or relaxing by the ocean.

In 1950s New York, Martin worked alongside the Abstract Expressionists, but her serene work sat apart from the tumult often associated with that group. While they explored with extroverted gestures, Martin looked inward, seeking tranquil order and emotional simplicity; looking for what she called “the inner mind.”

By the ‘60s, the style she would become famous for—that has come to be labeled Contemplative Art—was fully formed. Hand-drawn grids, soft, pale colors, subtle lines, and quiet, rhythmic repetition dominated her work.

Martin, who died in 2004, didn’t “paint paintings” in the traditional sense—there’s nothing figurative and very rarely something specific to focus on or identify in her work. Instead, she created experiential environments which the viewer is asked to occupy— demanding we slow down, take a breath, and look deeper. Contemplate.

Once Martin applauded Mark Rothko for having "reached zero so that nothing could stand in the way of truth." From this declaration, she moved increasingly to the most reductive elements of an artwork, to emphasize an emotional state over a prescriptive narrative. “My paintings are not about what is seen,” she said. “They are about what is known forever in the mind.”