Notes on Quiet
The loudest openings sell the most. The quiet shows are where the thinking happens.
An opening is not a show. It is a party that happens to have work on the walls.
I say this as someone who goes to the party. I like the party. But I have stopped pretending that what I see there is the exhibition, any more than what you hear at a wedding is the marriage.
Go back on a Tuesday. That is when the room talks.
On a Tuesday the invigilator is reading. The lights hum. You can stand in front of one work for eleven minutes and nobody needs you to move, or to have an opinion yet.
The quiet shows, the ones that sell slowly and get photographed badly, tend to be built for that kind of looking. They do not survive the opening. They were never trying to.
Most of the shows I have changed my mind about, I changed it on the second visit, alone.
So this is less an argument than a habit I am recommending. See it twice. Believe the second time.
Mbako Kago Moemise Curator.