but then you would be DRAWING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF, and Seattleites might bitch about you when you're safely out of earshot. besides, it's not like they're Kincaids. they're only Picassos.

Get in there!

Seriously. I'm always the guy standing right up at the painting. Just stand a bit to the side if you don't want to block anyone's view. How can you resist seeing the detail? Isn't that the whole point of seeing the work in-person rather than in a book?

Actually, to get a real feel for the art, you should change both distance and angle. That allows you to get a true feel for the perspectives that Picasso is trying to show you.

Only art snobs who get hung up over brushwork spend all their time next to the painting, missing the whole point.

Little known fact: The benches facing the art work are usually near where optimal viewing is.

There, saved you an MFA degree.

I have to keep my distance from the paintings; I find it all too tempting to feel them. When I went to the Frida Kahlo exhibit a few years back, I read on some of the plaques that the painting was done on metal. It made me really, really want to tap the edge of the painting with a fingernail to see if it would produce a satisfying *ting*. I resisted the urge, but only by viewing them with my hands behind my back.

Backing up is good, too. I'd never understood Mark Rothko's art in reproduction, but the full size paintings just took over my emotions when I saw them in person. Combining back up with looking close is the best methodology, in my opinion.

FYI, getting close does not mean staying there, or only looking from there.

when no one's looking i like to smell the art. mmmmm

@7 oh, ok, cause I do like to look at them close as part of it.

@8 my fave is some of the art from coffee and tea and ale houses. It literally has a smell from centuries of exposure.

Thank you for this - never understood the apparent PC crap at SAM with everyone being overly polite. I tend to continue to move around fairly slowly when close, side to side and closer to farer away, to show that I am not a long term camper, then move on back to the bench to let it breathe a while before others move in close - gives you a chance to actually see what the artist saw while creating the piece. When others get into this rhythm, it feels almost organic and participatory.

Stop telling me how to appreciate art. you don't own perception.

Perception is in the eye of the Beholder.

YES! This drives me crazy, because then when I do get up close (for a reasonable period of time only) I feel as if I shouldn't because I'll be blocking the view of those 20 people looking at it from halfway across the room.

One of the last times I was at SAM, I fell in love with a particular painting on display - Ferdinand Leger's Soldiers Playing at Cards. It's a colossal, fantastic piece of cubism, and I spent about half an hour standing in front of it, looking at it from different angles and distances. There weren't many other people in the gallery, so I didn't have to worry about getting in their way - but a security guard stood there watching me the whole time. When I walked up close - I wanted to see how the brush strokes made up the metallic gradients in the image - he sharply told me not to touch it & to move away. I think I said something to the affect of that I had no intention of it (probably a wounded, "but - but - I just wanted to look!") he explained himself by saying, "Usually people who are so into an artwork try to touch it".

So now I keep my distance and try not to look so interested. Fuck you, SAM security guard.

Word, @14. The SAM security guards are assholes about getting close to the art. I leaned in close to a painting once and one practically ran over to make sure I wasn't going to touch it. They need to fuck off. I don't have this problem at other big museums.

Security at most museums requires visitors to be two feet away from artwork. The one that I work in also gets lots of complaints from security but I sometimes feel is that is because people don't know this often unposted museum-world rule that security officers are required to uphold. So give them a break. They're just doing their jobs. Get in close but remember: two feet away please!

@14, @15, remember the person who fell into a Warhol and destroyed it at SAM last year? Maybe that's why they're touchy.

Interestingly, the main photo gallery at SAM is lucky to be 11 ft. wide. It makes it very difficult to get back an view the photographs from a distance. If SAM hadden't allocated a lost hallway for their photos everything might be ok. Other art there gets respect as to the size of the room their in but not photography. Does SAM have a photo attitude? The light has improved in this space but not the space.