MONUMENTALITY

Jason Jacques Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Monumentality, a virtual exhibition centered around size. Small objects have long been a source of fascination within the world of art and design; there’s a pleasant tension surrounding something which is small enough to be held in one’s hand yet too exquisite to touch, something which seems bigger than itself.

After all, a monumental form need only be a few inches high, according to twentieth century sculptor’s Henry Moore’s musings from a 1964 interview for Warren Forma’s Five British Sculptors: Work and Talk. He went on to elaborate: “There is a difference between scale and size. A small sculpture only three of four inches big can have about it a monumental scale… a small thing only a few inches big might seem, if it has a monumental scale, to be any size.”

This exhibition is an analysis of this very idea— the premise that, by unraveling the relationship between scale and size in this abstract sense, we may begin a greater discussion concerning what gives a work of art or design aura and presence. Small objects carry myriad connotations. They may be seen as trinkets or tchotchkes. At once, they invoke a sense of preciousness that often transforms them into treasures, antique curios with a jewel-like rarity. The difference, per Moore’s earlier statement, has partially to do with in the sense of scale an artist imbues an object with, a fact potters have toyed with for centuries.

Monumentality is a clay-based inquiry in pursuit of the bewitching moment the eye cannot be torn away from the undersized, dazzling object on a mantle, on a bookshelf, atop a writing desk, or on the vanity. An inquiry in pursuit of what draws the eye towards the small and arresting flea-market curio.

This exhibition contains a discerning selection of contemporary and historic ceramic vessels that span a broad array of styles and dates, from the late nineteenth century onwards. The smallest piece, a petite cachepot made c. 1920 by Auguste Delaherche, stands at a mere 2.3 inches.  Its milky white surface is delicately painted with green clovers. The tallest, a long-necked, porcelain vessel, made by Royal Copenhagen c. 1910, comes in at 9.8 inches. The ultramarine hue of its impossibly fine crackle glaze gives it a gem-like quality. In between is a grouping of works whose size sits in complex dialogue with their other formal attributes— the artist’s use of texture, choice of color, handling of figuration, or application of a functional purpose.