How to enjoy an art gallery when you know nothing about art

Here is a straightforward look at this topic for Ridents.

The trick is to stop trying to see everything. Pick one room, walk around it once without reading a label, and notice which work your eyes keep returning to. Then stand in front of it for five full minutes. Ask yourself what is happening, what it would feel like to be inside it, and what the artist had to decide to make it look that way.

The trick is to stop trying to see everything.

Only after that read the label, and see whether it changes what you noticed. Two or three works looked at this way give you more than a hundred glanced at. Many galleries are free, open late one evening a week and offer short talks; a half-hour visit on the way home becomes a pleasant habit rather than a day-long obligation.