“I’m after an experience for the viewer,” said Mark Rothko in a 1958 lecture at the Pratt Institute, “one that involves his emotions as well as his intellect.” Claire Sourgnes and Kezia Geddes have adopted this approach in the curation of Arriving Slowly: Exploring the Abstract at Ipswich Art Gallery. “Some abstraction is deeply intellectual, and not emotional at all,” says Sourgnes. “We’ve curated wanting to elicit that emotional vibration.”
Arriving Slowly was triggered by the National Gallery of Australia’s ‘Sharing the National Collection’ program, which loans significant pieces from their collection to regional and suburban galleries. Ipswich Art Gallery has loaned three pieces for the show: Mark Rothko’s 1957 # 20, 1957 and two paintings from Agnes Martin. The abstract heavyweights are presented alongside 20 contemporary artists working across the expanded definition of abstraction, including Lindy Lee, D Harding, Paul Knight, Jonny Niesche and Rosslynd Piggott. “We looked to works that invite longer temporal relationships,” says Sourgnes. “Works that are subtle and not always obvious, that will ask something.”
At the heart of the show is an emphasis on slow looking. “I’ve got an interest in duration, and the speed with which people look at work,” says Geddes. “On average, people look at an artwork on a wall for six seconds and then move on. We are trying to slow the process right down.” Sourges and Geddes encourage considered, deliberate looking. They make reference to Rothko’s search for “pockets of silence”, a state that he believed allowed true growth to happen. “With slow looking, every time you go into the gallery, you can experience the work differently,” says Geddes. “Looking and allowing a work to happen, it’s about seeking the sublime, the unknown, and being happy in a shifting space.”
Arriving Slowly: Exploring the Abstract
Ipswich Art Gallery
On now—16 February
This article was originally published in the January/February 2025 print issue of Art Guide Australia.
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