October 11, 2024

All the. Small things.

Oct 11, 2024

Joshua Mintz, *Our House Swallows Moths* at The Front

Hi.

(I said Gravity’s Rainbow, Josh, but I meant Infinite Jest.)

My car’s power steering fluid has a slow leak, so from time to time, when steering becomes athletic, I just add more fluid. This time the reservoir was full but steering was more difficult than ever. Under the hood I found a shredded belt.

I followed the hose from the power steering fluid reservoir and saw something shiny under the alternator. From a groove in a newly exposed metal, I pulled a ribbon of stiff rubber. It was the remainder of the serpentine belt, responsible not only for power steering, but the function of the alternator, which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy stored in the battery.

Jeff in New York said we could install a new belt ourselves, so I biked to the auto parts store on Earhart. Me, my sons, and in a last minute twist, the mysterious tire guy on the corner, got it done for the cost of the part.

Art is great but so is the feeling of fixing a car and unexpected help from strangers. All the small things…

But also, what do small things mean? Or maybe I mean “little,” small being more relative, little begin miniature? Miniatures. Little versions of larger things. What does scale mean?

What happens when multiple scales meet in the same space or when an art viewer encounters multiple art-miniatures in the same week?

(About Infinite Jest, “famous for its length, detail and digressions” is what I was thinking.) Links below.

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I MET WITH

Joshua Mintz Our House Swallows Moths at The Front

(What I meant, Josh, with Infinite Jest holds a density of language. Footnotes to the footnotes. And for the reader, physical, temporal, overwhelm, disorientation.)

I told Josh about Yasser’s comment years ago–I had made some small, nostalgic, resin object-collages. He liked some and some were–he didn’t use this word–too precious.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

He said, “You have to be careful about making it look like they were made by he little people.” When he said "little people" he changed his voice to sound like a fairy tale.

I understood exactly what he meant though I’m not sure if I can explain it any better than he did.

What can a miniature mean or do? Do they come from need to control the scene, control the narrative, oversee the details? I think of model train enthusiasts. Miniatures can create an Alice in Wonderland sense of disorientation or, like Gulliver’s Travels, political commentary. Things grow smaller in the review mirror. Miniatures can talk about the diminishing effect of distance in time or space.

(Are small artworks “personal?” What does that mean? Where does the viewer belong?)

Miniaturizing was a prominent device in this show though there were others which argued the point was not “admire the small things I made.” There were life-sized trompe l’oeil sculptures and readymades.

Some objects, the more minimal ones, feel evocative, nostalgic(felt in the solar plexus). Other objects, including the most technically impressive miniatures, don’t so much evoke memory (though I know from the artist they reference it). These offer an optical experience (in and behind the eyes) inviting. Close looking.

I spent an hour and a half talking with the artist and we still didn’t cover all there was. A dense read.

(And Josh, alas, poor me, I never actually read Infinite Jest.)

Laura Gipson, Inner/Circle at Antenna

Melody Chang, Dear Tulane & Broad at Antenna

little things.

•••

AND

Lily Brooks, Toward a Larger Freedom:10 Years of Citizen Power Organizing with Together Baton Rouge, at the Front

A collection of stories.

Garima Thakur & Tabitha Nikolai, Waiting in Vain, at The Front

Sarah House, Unearthly Grove at Good Children

These wall sculptures incorporate notions of growth and gravity using a palette I want to call “condo” in which all colors lean against beige: red beige, blue beige… I like this about them.