Above image by Toshio Shibata: Okutama Town, Nishitama County, 2006, type-c print 4" x 5" © Courtesy of the artist and Laurence Miller Gallery
Laurence Miller Gallery's summer exhibition, Small Things Considered presents the small-scale work of over 30 different artists. This collection consciously opposes the exhaustive nature of large blockbuster galleries and museum shows. Instead, the pieces featured in the gallery display the ephemeral, intimate, and simple episodes of everyday life. Revealing that it truly is the small things which create the most moving experiences.
Harry Callahan: Eleanor & Barbara, Lake Michigan, 1953, dye-transfer print, 9" x 13.5" © Courtesy of Laurence Miller Gallery
Harry Callahan's work is currently featured in MoMa and has been included in exhibitions at other large international museums such as the Tate Modern, Heckscher Museum of Art, Kicken Berlin, and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Eleanor & Barbara, Lake Michigan captures a simple moment between Callahan's wife Eleanor and their child Barbara. Natural light silhouettes the mother and her daughter merging them as one unified body, tied together by physical touch and an unseen emotional embrace. It is one of the many photographs Callahan took of his wife throughout the 1950's of Eleanor and Barbara together.
Harry Callahan: Eleanor, Chicago, 1949, silver gelatin print, 9 15/16 x 8", © 2014 The Estate of Harry Callahan
Another interesting photograph of Callahan's wife Eleanor from 1949, Chicago, her silhouette is shrunk by a dark void. The subject is made small, reduced to a rendered white body against the contrast of the blackness enclosing around her.
Kazuo Sumida: New York City Subway, West 28th Street, 2002, gelatin silver print, 7.5 x 10" © Courtesy of the artist and Laurence Miller Gallery
Kazuo Suminda depicts the impermanence of the New York subways in his print from 2002. The photograph captures the tender emotion and the passivity of subjects as the train passes by.
Open through August 21 2014, Small Things Considered features artists such as Helen Levitt, Walker Evans, Dominic Episcipo and Ray Metzker. The exhibition holds true to its name through an assortment of modest photographs and mixed-media pieces.
Text by Kate Marin
All images courtesy of the artist and Laurence Miller Gallery.