Photograph of Antwaun Sargen by Adrienne Raquel.
In this feature for Interview Magazine, Gagosian director Antwaun Sargent shares some tips on how to properly engage with art. In 8 short steps, Sargent walks through how to engage with visual art, including first reactions, reading wall text, and researching the art in real-time with your phone. How do you take in art when you first encounter it?
“While any way you choose to engage with a work of art is correct, except for, perhaps, destroying it, there is a deep, sustained looking that is possible. This kind of looking enhances the experience, moving you away from five-second judgments and the lame binaries of good and bad and like and dislike. Don’t read anything! Just experience it. What do you think? What stands out? This way of looking allows for you to have, let’s call it a pure experience. Just you and the work.” - Antwaun Sargent
