SouthernSalon is about art — learning, writing and enjoying — or not. It was started by friends who love most art but not indiscriminately and want to explore and to learn together.

SouthernSalon’s founding members live on the edge of a small island in the Southern Ocean, and the only reason for telling you that is in case you are curious about our site name.

We are not artists. What we hope to do in SouthernSalon is to write clearly and as well as we can about works of art we respond to. And, sometimes to talk with the artists to understand more. We also realise that this may not always increase our understanding.

And we promise never to use the words “amazing”, “awesome” or “brilliant” unless we think what we are writing about actually is.

Unlike people and car salesmen, art stands still – all there, all at once. It doesn’t alter; we do. Most artists understand that their work’s effect should be permanently instantaneous. Mistakes are part of the experience…. We can’t immediately know anything except in terms of what we already know. So, I look again, each time with less thought, letting the work’s strangeness (if it has any; if it doesn’t, I’m gone) take over.

Peter Schjeldahl (2008)