Ori Gersht, Untitled 20, from the series Time After Time, 2007 Collection SFMOMA © Ori Gersht

Can you look at a single work of art for ten minutes? Straight?

In collaboration with international grass-roots organization Slow Art Day, SFMOMA and Open Space have a challenge for you: devote ten uninterrupted minutes to looking at a single work of art slowly.

On Saturday, April 27th, museums and galleries all over the world are participating in the event, and we are too: Open Space regulars Tess Thackara and Duane Deterville, and writer and artist Emily Wilson, will each host a round of slow-looking in the galleries — three to five works of art for ten minutes each, followed by conversation and refreshments in the Koret Visitor Education Center.

It’s going to be fun — and it’s FREE, after museum admission. Please join us! To sign up, and for more details, check out our Slow Art Day registration page.

Can’t make it on April 27th? We’re also taking this experiment in mindfulness beyond the galleries and onto the Internet, inviting our fast-moving online community to a join us over at our crowd-sourced Tumblr. Check out SFMOMA slow, where we ask you to devote ten minutes to looking at anything – an artwork, an image online, your shoes, whatever. Then snap a picture of what you looked at and tell us about your experience.

And! There’s going to be a little slow-art action happening on Twitter, too: we’ve commissioned some top-secret local folk to hijack our @SFMOMA Twitter feed for thirty minutes of slow looking (and tweeting) during the week of April 20. Follow @SFMOMA  or search for #SFMOMAslow  to track the conversation.

Here, some pretty timepieces, to get you started:

Beth Yarnelle Edwards, Erin, Age 11, 1997, Collection SFMOMA
© Beth Yarnelle Edwards

Eugène Atget, St Étienne du Mont, rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevière Ve arr., 1898
Collection SFMOMA

Leland Rice, Untitled (Living Room, Linda Connor), 1973 Collection SFMOMA. Gift of an anonymous donor © Leland Rice