SCALE: the intimacy of immensity

Lauren Shultz, curator

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St. John International University presents SCALE: the intimacy of immensity an exhibition that examines the range of values attributed to scale in contemporary art through showcasing international artists and SJIU Fine Arts Faculty members Rocío Aguilar-­‐Nuevo and Tom Johnson, with a special project by Valeria Graziano.

The show consists of four massive acrylic paintings, four colossal charcoal drawings and an infographic installation of antonyms and juxtapositions utilizing the Google Ngram database. Going beyond the simple notion of miniature and monumental, the exhibition seeks to explore scale in its evocative psychological and hierarchical terms.

In the past, leaders have commissioned artistic projects as demonstrations of power and authority. Scale has been used to direct people’s thoughts and beliefs in order to indicate wealth and control. In current practice, scale continues to play the same role though from a different vantage point. Although globalized culture dominates and power relations still persist via political influence, artists now utilize size for activism, grand personal statements, and even economic valuation.

The artists in this show present intimate fragments of individual experience that evoke memories and demand close inspection. Within the context of the colossal Castello della Rovere, the space itself becomes both a method to explore scale and a facilitator of dialogue between the artworks. The exhibition aims to explore the immense and the intimate and in doing so underline the power of scale with its imposing politics and psychologies.

Exhibition Days