INVITE-ONLY CURATED EVENING AT GALERIE SECHS • BASEL • A NEW WAY OF SEEING PEOPLE THROUGH ART
A painting changes the more you know. So do people.
Date to Be Confirmed, October, 2026Going beyond the first impression...
Reading a painting and reading people's motives and behaviors share the same root.
Both are projections of our own filters: experience, cultural bias, education, the era we grew up in, who taught us what to admire.
Beautiful or ugly. Talent or technique. Original or fake. Worth attention or not worth it.
How often do we mistake that first read for objective reality?
HELEN FRANKENTHALER Riverhead, 1963. Kunstmuseum Basel, gift of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. © 2026 I asked a friend what she thought of Helen Frankenthaler's work.
She was scrolling through the artist's page. Her first reaction sounded like a verdict.
“Very derivative. Scrolling through, I am just seeing a page of images - that's Rothko, some of it I’d say Georgia O'Keeffe. A bit of Matisse in there. A bit of Gauguin. She looks like other people.”
She was not really looking anymore, as she just confirmed her opinion.
-- Friend“She saw Pollock's show in 1950, and that's what made her invent her soak-stain technique - Mountains and Sea, 1952. She was in New York right when Abstract Expressionism started. And she got to Europe in 1948, straight after college, to see the old masters in the museums. Helen is one of the three best-known women artists of her time, with a fifty-year career.”
-- DianaI'm scrolling further, aha here is a photo of her doing the soak-stain. She's not just copying three other people, she's got a process of her own. That changes how I relate to it. I'm less dismissive than I was when I let the first impression decide.
-- Friend 
Nature Abhors a Vacuum (1973) by Helen Frankenthaler.Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.With people its the same…
Someone is devoted, or stubborn, or modest — or reminds you of someone you didn't get on with. That first snapshot becomes your lens on them.
Staying curious about art you like is easy.
Staying curious about art you don't like — or people whose behavior you don't like — is not.
“What if going beyond the first impression to see the reasons through their eyes — is all you need?”
— Participant’s insight
Checking your “read” before you act - is the part most of us skip.
We act on the first impression and decide on character.
For leaders, a wrong reading costs more. Time is limited. Stakes are high.
What looks like a weakness through your filters is often a strength read wrong.
Self-Confident to often…
and you will be seen as an ARROGANT to the point of being seen as a “the smartest person” in the room no one want to collaborate with as you know the best.
Stubborn reads wrong is…
PERSEVERING. The strength, that helps its owner to maintain the same course of actions despite of obstacles and get things done everyone else gave up for a while already.
Too much of Tolerance…
makes you think that this person is INDIFFERENT and have no opinion on their own or have no preferences.
1.Guided tour
Learn more about selected work at Mind Is Not a Machine with the context a curator would give you. The clues that make a second look possible.
2. Three Questions
Three questions are enough to shift how you see a painting. You'll try them yourself - on the wall in front of you.
3.The same lens on people
We read people's motives and behavior the way we read a painting: through our filters first, then through someone else's angle on the same person.
Relationship Intelligence™ is one skill no AI can beat you at.
Two ways in:
It's your evening if your job is to manage teams, experienced professionals, international experts and stakeholders across the globe. And misreading people in high-stakes situations costs more than it should.
No art background needed. If the mind isn't a machine, reading people isn't diagnostics - it's interpretation.
Not your evening yet? No managerial experience but the topic still speaks to you?
This topic is bigger then one room. If you don't have people management responsibilities yet but you're curious, tell us what you'd want from an evening like this. We're building a series on relationship intelligence, and the next one could be designed around your ask. Write us to start a conversation.
Secure your spot.
Send us a request by September 25th, 2026 to secure your seat.
This is an invite-only evening for ten people with managerial and leadership experience.
We would like you have the opportunity to influence the program, better understand your own and others strengths, and gain a unique experience in reading people as you would read art.
The form asks for your name and email. We use them only to consider your application and to send you the confirmed date and the practical information for the evening.Your details are held by the Facilitator are never sold, and are shared with Gallery Sechs only as the guest list for the evening. We keep them for 12 months after the evening and then delete them. You can ask to see, correct or delete your details, or withdraw your consent, at any time by using Contact Us form. Full details in our privacy policy.