Discussions about the steadily growing pace of modern life have long become a commonplace in artistic and humanitarian thought. In response to this general acceleration, the concept of “slowness” arose, that is, the artificial slowing down of life - including through the means of visual art. In his book, Lutz Koepnick conceptualizes this phenomenon and analyzes artistic practices that deal “with the expanded structure of time and with strategies of doubt, deferment and procrastination that allow us to slow down and experience the heterogeneous, multifaceted flow of the present.” Among them are the cinema of Peter Weir and Werner Herzog, photographs of Willie Doherty and Hiroyuki Masuyama, media objects of Olafur Eliasson and Janet Cardiff. The author is sure that behind these experiences there is not nostalgia for the idyllic past, but a desire to penetrate into the essence of the present and think about the nature of time. Lutz Koepnick is a professor of visual art and intellectual history at Vanderbilt University.