Month: February 2007

Art is long…and slow?

I’ve been meaning to write about the link between slowness and art for ages and this blog entry is only a very patchy first volley. I love art, and love wandering round galleries. I don’t paint or sculpt or do anything art-like myself (apart from with my children), but as a writer I know that time is an essential ingredient of the creative act. You don’t hurry Hemingway. You don’t rush Rembrandt. Many works of art can be created quickly, or at least with great dynamism – think of Jackson Pollock attacking the canvas. But others need more time, from conception through to execution. The idea of Slow is rippling through the art world at the moment. Robert Hughes, the doyen of art critics, has called for more Slow Art (clickHERE). The Royal College of Art in London is currently hosting a series of lectures on slowness (I gave one of them) and you can find out more by clickingHERE. Almost every week I hear of another exhibition somewhere in the world organized round the theme of slowness. One example is the Plymouth Arts Centre in Devon, England. A group of artists and art dealers in New York has even signed a Slow Art Manifesto. This debate raises some fascinating questions, starting with: What exactly is slow art? Sadly I don’t have time to answer that right now because I have to get back to writing my next book, but I will be returning to this theme again. And I welcome any thoughts you want to share on the subject…

Patience for Spanish patients

Just got back from giving a talk in Barcelona. Love that city, even in the rain. But the trip there was dreadful thanks to the snow that paralyzed the trains and the airports in Britain – lots of bad slow. Along the way I discovered that Spanish doctors, fed up with the constant pressure to hurry patients through the system as quickly as possible, are fighting back. They want more time in order to do their job properly. To that end, they are demanding a minimum of 10 minutes with each patient. There is a campaign group called Plataforma 10 Minutos and you can find out more by clickingHERE.