A new podcast about art, endurance, and packed lunches
An invited guest, an artwork of their choosing, and ninety minutes of uninterrupted looking. Will staring at a canvas for an hour-and-half unlock penetrating new insights? Or will I just be really, really bored?Canvas Opinions is coming soon to whichever platform you use to get your podcasts.
Canvas Opinions is inspired by an assignment created by Jennifer Roberts for first-year students of her art history class at Harvard. Each year, Roberts instructs her students to pick a piece of art in a local museum and go look at it for three hours.The idea underpinning this feat of gallery-based endurance is that sometimes we might need a justification to slow down and engage more deeply with what's in front of us. In this way, the assignment is partly about art appreciation, but it's also about the way we experience time, the role of patience in a relentlessly fast-paced world, and the rewards that may be waiting for us if we can push past boredom or discomfort. Maybe.
Each episode of Canvas Opinions follows the same format: an invited guest, an artwork of their choosing, and ninety minutes of uninterrupted looking. Okay, it's not quite as impressive as Roberts' three hour assignment, but it's still a lot.The guests taking part are a mix of curators, writers, and critics that I hope will be able to help me engage with their choice of artwork more deeply - or at least distract me enough to stop my legs from getting too tired. Along the way, we'll be talking about the history of art, the role of gallery spaces, and how you're supposed to look at a piece of art anyway. Oh, and we'll occasionally be comparing packed lunches, too.
get involved
If you're connected to the world of art and are interested in participating in an episode of Canvas Opinions, we want to hear from you.