Downsized: Small-Scale Sculpture by Contemporary Artists

Downsized features 12 artists and one collaborative pair whose works are united by their small scale. The annual miniature show has been a tradition at the Bruce Museum for over 35 years and this year’s exhibition, curated by Kathy Reichenbach, explores interior and exterior architecture. This international group of contemporary artists embraces architecture through three-dimensional models, snow globes, dioramas and other surprising forms. Several works included in Downsized are inspired by real spaces such as Subway, Corner of Broadway and Houston Street (circa 1960) by Richard Haas. Haas’s diorama is a large box with two portals, allowing viewers to peer into a Manhattan subway platform from the past. Alan Wolfson’s Brooklyn Bridge Station (2008) also shows a New York City subway station, yet the details of Wolfson’s version are rendered with more precision. For Temple of Poseidon (1999), German artist Dieter Cöllen conferred with archaeologists and architectural historians to recreate a complete model of the ancient Greek temple from the 5th century BCE. Curiously, Cöllen’s building is made out of cork, a popular modeling material for souvenirs during the 18th century.

Walter Martin (American, b. 1953) and Paloma Muñoz (American, b. 1965), Traveler 292, 2014, mixed media, 9 x 6 x 6″. © Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz.

Frank Poor’s intricate models are rooted in photography. Traveling around the southern U.S., Poor documents buildings and abandoned structures. In Cotton Depot – Bishopville, SC (2015), Poor’s photographic images are transposed onto glass on a basswood wall-mounted structure with delicately cast shadows. Reichenbach said the work recalls childhood memories of the south for Poor, who is now based in Rhode Island. Other artists in the show impress viewers with their technical feats. Dutch artist Rosa de Jong fits her sculptures of tiny homes on grassy knolls inside of test tubes with openings slightly larger than an inch. The whimsical scenes imagined by the team of Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz occur inside snow globes. Traveler 292 (2014) shows a man whose shoulders are holding up a house teetering on a mound of snow. The works in the “Traveler” series tell stories from within their encapsulated worlds. Miniature works beckon viewers to come closer. Many of them included in Downsized recall specific places and history, while others thrill viewers through fantasy and technical mastery.