SEEING ART

Why should this be art? Did you come for the sake of the art? What is the context around this art? If you are opening this book up for the first time at an exhibition, you might end up asking yourself questions about art that would not have otherwise arisen. In reading this book at home, you may experience a shift in your way of thinking about the interpretation of art. In SEEING ART, art historian Angeli Janhsen has written a book of questions that incite us to find our own way towards art - without spoon-feeding us institutional instruction briefs in the form of audio guides, museum labels, tours and catalogs. Each person encounters art differently. Angeli Janhsen's questions are at times provo - cative, at others animating, but whichever way, they always touch upon how individuals perceive art. SEEING ART is intended to invite us to search for answers and pose questions ourselves. Angeli Janhsen, professor at the Institute of Art History at the University of Freiburg, opens up a questions hotline: the pages in her book make space for notes, thoughts and ideas. Instead of aiming to be an open book, or guidebook, her book prompts dialog. It makes us aware of art. It conveys art in a subliminal way, without patronizing the viewer, while also reflecting on its own presuppositions. If art history in the 19th century was a classification system, then today's contemporary inquiry into art is an open discourse. And nothing is more important here than asking questions. Except seeing art itself.