It is Throwback Thursday!
“Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, . . . some intimate, low-voiced, & delicate things in our mostly huge & roaring, glaring world?” --Elizabeth Bishop
For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we want to lookback at our 2014 exhibition Small., that highlighted the power and the beauty of intimate works.
This group exhibition featured a selection ofinternational contemporary artists who adopted an intimate format to explore issues related to visual perception, personal and historical memory, the construction of gender stereotypes, and the power of the imagination. In an age when cavernous galleries and outsized images and objects suggest that bigger is necessarily better, working small carries a certain risk. It is a risk, however, that the nine artists in the exhibition were willing to take as they created minute worlds that absorbed the viewer while resisting possession. The selected works ranged from graphite photo-realist renderings to interventions in found objects to site-specific installations, including a custom-made tabletop bearing microscopic figurations and a postage-stamp-sized watercolor inserted directly into the gallery wall. The artists in Small. were: Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Santiago de los Trenta Caballeros, Dominican Republic), Emmanouil Bitsakis (b. 1974, Athens, Greece), Paul Chiappe (b. 1984, Kircady, Scotland), Claire Harvey (b. 1976, United Kingdom), Tom Molloy, (b. 1964, Waterford, Ireland), Rita Ponce de León (b. 1982, Lima, Peru), Peggy Preheim (b. 1963, Yankton, SD), James Sheehan (b. 1964, San Francisco, CA), and Tinus Vermeersch (b. 1976, Belgium).
Please note that James Sheehan, Death of Malevich, is still on view in our basement corridor through October.
Paul Chiappe, Untitled 48, 2010. Pencil on paper. 5 5/16 x 6 7/64 inches. Collection Lea Weingarten.
James Sheehan, Death of Malevich, 2013. Watercolor on rag board, inserted into wall. 7/8 x 1 inch. Courtesy of the artist.
Claire Harvey, Easily Removable People, 2006. Acrylic on easily-removable scotch tape. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Fons Welters.
