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-Confidence, too often…
and people see you as ARROGANT — the smartest person in the room no one wants to collaborate with, because you value no one’s throughs except your own.
Stubborn, read wrong, is…
PERSEVERING. The strength that helps the person stay the course despite obstacles and get things done what everyone else gave up on.
Too much Tolerance…
makes you think that this person is INDIFFERENT and that they have no opinion of their own, no preferences.
Our evening, at a glance.
We open inside Mind Is Not a Machine with selected work and the context a curator would give you — the clues that make a second look possible.
A guided tour
Three questions are enough to shift how you see a painting. You'll use them on the wall in front of you, and find out how little it takes.
Three Questions
We read strengths the way we just read a painting: through your filters first, then through someone else's angle on the same person.
The Same Lens, Turned To People
What’s included
Born from our passion for art and relationships — and the people in the room will shape it.
This is the first evening of its kind.
A practiced second look — on art, and on people. Your own strengths and filters, named and explained — and what they cost you.
Law costs, high impact - starting on Monday.
Leaders decode people's behavior all the time. You deserve a modern, up-to-date way of getting to the reasons — why people do what they do. Misreading a painting starts a conversation. The same with people.
Understanding universal motivation
Introductory rate only - 160 CHF (199 CHF full price)
Light Apéro. A tailor-made guided tour. Strengths experienced through Relationship Intelligence™. A room of like-minded leaders and experienced professionals.
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.
RSVP by September 25th, 2026
Send your confirmation by September 25th, 2026.
This invite-only evening is for ten people with managerial or leadership experience. We've kept the group small and matched by intent — each person brings one thing they'd like to get better at, and we've kept the mix diverse enough for safe leadership growth in relationship intelligence, through art.
Reply and let us know you're in.
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.