Glorious Index
Institute Library
847 Chapel St.
Through Dec. 14
FEED’s Failed Zardoz Bootleg oozes with cheeky charisma even before you know what the title is. The name refers to the 1974 John Boorman-directed science-fiction movie starring, perhaps improbably, Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling; it was universally panned on its release and since then has developed a cult following in the ways that compellingly bad movies can. But you don’t need to know that to appreciate the fun — and skill — that have gone into the piece, from the choice of Pepto-Bismol pink to the comical design to the bubble gum tongue, unrolling like a receipt out of a self-checkout machine, to advertise a cheap art sale.
The whimsical piece is part of “Glorious Index,” a show of miniature pieces at the Institute Library on Chapel Street that opened in October in conjunction with Open Studios, but there are still a couple more weeks to see it before it closes on Dec. 14.
As with last year’s Glorious Index show, the exhibition is meant to serve as a directory, a quick snapshot of the art that New Haven’s working artists are making. It also connects heavily to the Institute Library gallery’s mission to “offer visual art … with the active interest of sparking dialogue, providing a locus and salon for visual culture within our community.” The gathering of small pieces in the room almost feels like a simulation of a show’s opening night, as the pieces talk amongst each other with the same vivacious energy of the artists themselves, conversing over cocktails.
A few of the artists use working small as an opportunity to show how exquisite a palm-sized piece can be. Niko Scharer’s Evolution shows off its refinement and attention to proportion and detail. Susan Clinard’s Lean In is a tiny study in how big compassion and empathy can be. It features two figures, one curled up in a position of hurt, the other a solid wall ready to protect. Meg Bloom’s At Sea shows that the artist — who features in regular rotation at City Gallery — can create the same ingenious, gravity-defying pieces at a smaller scale than she usually exhibits.
Other groupings of artists create pieces that, taken together in the show, feel like ephemera from an alternate reality. The title of Kathryn Frund’s Sandbag Grouping 2forces the viewer to think a little differently about the brightly colored miniature throw pillows on display. If they’re sandbags, what frivolous yet dangerous flood are they stacked to contain? Maria Markham’s Ráth — the Old Irish word for a circular earthwork — combines stitching and grainy photography to create a moody image evocative of a folk horror movie.
Then there’s David Katz’s And to the Future I Urgently Appeal, a diminutive sculpture featuring a small bust of a man in a winged box. The title is taken from the English translation of a poem by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, to which the man in the box bears a passing resemblance. The poem muses on the fleetingness of time, the seasons, and life: “When at the end of spring I pick for the last time / My favourite flowers — a yearning fills my breast,” Tchaikovsky writes. “And to the future I urgently appeal: / Let me but once again look upon the lilies of the valley. / Now they have faded.” The poem takes the reader around the entire season cycle of death and rejuvenation. Katz’s sculpture lends a carnivalesque air to that kind of thinking. The box has the look of a 19th-century take on a time machine; the man inside wears a puzzled expression. It’s a heady mixture of ideas, and like many of the pieces in the show, proof that big ideas can be wrapped into small packages.
