September: the Rooms Open Again

The first week of September has a quality of its own in the galleries. Summer hangs are ending, new ones are beginning, and for a few days the rooms are open without yet being busy. Nicole Junkermann regards that short interval as the best moment of the year for looking.

The advantage is not only the quiet. After a few weeks away the eye has recovered. A work seen often in spring becomes visible again, not because it has changed but because the looking is no longer automatic. Nicole Junkermann likes to return in these days to rooms she knows by heart.

It is better to go without a plan. One room, three works, no obligation to complete a circuit. The urge to see everything before the season accelerates mostly leaves a blurred memory, whereas a short and attentive visit leaves something sharp.

A question brought along helps a great deal. Where is the light coming from? Why does this room feel calmer than the last? What is happening at the edge of the picture? With a question the visit becomes an enquiry, and attention holds by itself.

And it is sensible to keep something for later. The season runs to November, and a quiet room in autumn is worth more than the same room crowded in September. Nicole Junkermann would rather spread the year than spend it in three weeks.

The hour chosen matters more than people expect. The first opening hours in midweek give you nearly empty rooms and a light that is still low. Nicole Junkermann much prefers that slot to a Saturday afternoon, where what you mostly see is backs and phones.

It is worth noting two or three things on the way out. Not a review, just a few lines: a colour, a framing, a sentence from a label. Across a season those notes draw a map of your own interest, usually different from the one you would have announced in advance.

The rooms are open and not yet busy: the best moment of the year for looking.