Micrologies

Main and Americas Gallery, January 18–July 2, 2023
Curated by CSU assistant professor of painting Aitor Lajarin-Encina

“From the landscape: a sense of scale. From the dead: a sense of scale.”
―Richard Siken

“To taste the sea, all one needs is one gulp.”
―Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956

Micrologies is a traveling, growing group exhibition that revolves around the aesthetics of small-scale, micro-materiality poetics and minimum gesture politics. The eclectic group of contemporary artists in this exhibition have been invited to take the challenge of creating a very small but nevertheless significant piece, which is no bigger than 2.25 inches on each side, the exact measurements of a standard Rubik’s Cube. The cube is used here as a measurement unit since it serves as an analogy of a small object that allows, through a relational game, playful reconsiderations of spatial relationships.

The character of this exhibition is interdisciplinary. Only two rules were given to the artists: (1) the projects proposed must be no larger than the maximum proposed size, and (2) the projects should not be scaled-down models of larger works but pieces that are meant to exist and display their full potential in this particularly small scale. Scale takes a key role in any aesthetic experience.

Micrologies is a DXIX production curated by Aitor Lajarin-Encina that has been previously exhibited at Scharaun in Berlin, Harvard University (co-curated with Francisco Alarcon Ruiz), and Irenic Projects in Los Angeles (co-curated with Jaro Straub). Each iteration has incorporated additional artists from each context.

Support for this exhibition at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art has been generously provided by the FUNd Endowment at CSU and Colorado Creative Industries.