The Small Gallery is placed in public places like the sidewalk in front of the established galleries of 49 Geary St., San Francisco, during their collective opening night. It makes fun of its smallness while exposing the concept of a gallery for what it is – a room with a title. Since I created and manage it, distinctions between gallery owner, curator, and artist, are broken down at the same time the gallery has lost its orthodoxy by becoming part of the family of objects and ideas it’s meant to display.
The Small Gallery is a small room elevated off the ground that puts on display the nature of its construction and the often hidden structure of our surroundings. The rough outside is contrasted by the seemingly normal inside. It is normal but small. Small is not to be confused with miniature. The baseboards and the floorboards are normal size for a room; it is just the size of the room that has been reduced. To see the inside of the gallery the viewer must walk up a set of wooden blocks, elevating themself off the ground to then look down upon the art within the room. The process of climbing the wooden blocks, to then peer down into the gallery, both honors and condescends upon the venue. Its gallery-ness has reverence and disdain for itself. It is decorative and perfunctory, exclusive and inviting, being both art object and functional venue.
The materials are found old growth Douglas Fir 2×4’s, found lathe, plaster, found oak flooring, and found Victorian style baseboards. The dimensions are approximately 5’10” x 42” x 36”.
Artists Who Have Shown With The Small Gallery
| Biba Bell Miriam Blackman Lori Gordon Angela Hennessy Katie Kurtz Kyle Mock |
Ashley Neese Zachary Scholz Wei Weng Ann Reagan Michael Shankman |