Small is Beautiful: 2nd Floor Gallery

Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present Small is Beautiful, an exhibition of small-scale works by 21 artists, both familiar and new faces to the gallery’s program. The exhibition features works by Etel Adnan, Jennifer Bartlett, Rosemarie Beck, Max Bill, James Brooks, Marsha Cottrell, Richard Diebenkorn, Jeronimo Elespe, Tom Fairs, Louise Fishman, Judy Fishkin, Michael Goldberg, Zoe Longfield, Vera Molnar, Harvey Quaytman, Mariah Robertson, Jackie Saccoccio, Alan Shields, Hedda Sterne, Anne Truitt, and Jack Tworkov.

 

The title of this group show derives from the book Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher, which challenges the mainstream ethos of “bigger is better” through a collection of essays that propose alternative views on technology and human needs. As society evolves within the structure of capitalism, the value of objects and ideas becomes increasingly dependent on their quality of being measurable or quantifiable, which, more often than not, leads to the misevaluation of the significance of art in our lives. In the age of giantism and automation, art puts pressure on the assumption that human prosperity is solely indexed by macro development and commercial achievement. Demonstrating refinement and painstaking introspection of the artists, the works in Small is Beautiful invite the viewers to come close, and become intimate with the shapes of inexplicable emotions, observations, and instincts. These works bring attention to the personal and spiritual needs of people–– to extend empathy and curiosity about another human’s experiment, to imagine a life behind the fragment of a stranger’s painted memory.