Small is Beautiful
Flowers Gallery
New York
November 20th, 2014 – January 10th, 2015
Flowers Gallery will present their 40th Anniversary edition of the annual Small is Beautiful exhibition in New York this year. This is the first time that the entire exhibition has been held outside of the United Kingdom. Paintings, photography, small sculptures and installations are all included. There is only one requirement: each piece must measure approximately 9 x 7 inches, or about the size of a school notebook. The familiarity of this size of art is immediate. Almost everyone has doodled in pages of their notebooks, or started drawing on white printer paper. For the viewer it is also intimate. Each piece can be viewed in its entirety just a few inches away. In this world where we are so used to looking at things right in front of us, including computers, phones, and other devices, putting artwork into that space is making it more accessible. But it’s also slightly jarring: we think, hey wait, this thing doesn’t move when I swipe it (please don’t swipe it.)
The exhibition will run through the Christmas, from November 20th, 2014 until January 10th, 2015 as it has done since the 1970s. With more than 140 artists participating in the exhibition, it’s going to be a whole lot of a small thing. The painting above was from last year’s exhibition, by Nadav Kander, and as in previous years, Flowers Gallery gives a great opportunity for young, unrepresented or neglected artists a chance to shine alongside more established or famous artists. This year, some featured works include Ping Pong Balls, by Pixy Liao; Dying Day, by Lucy Jones; Untitled (watermelon) by Shen Wei; and Phoenix, by Jeff Lowe. Some subjects are small, and some are large, landscapes even, but are shrunken to fit into our own personal world.
