Toledo museum thinks big with ‘Small Worlds’

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Lori Nix’s photograph
‘Great Hall’ is part of the Small Worlds’ exhibit (Image provided by Toledo Museum of Art courtesy of
Lori Nix)

"Small Worlds," the recently opened exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art, is not afraid to reach
for big idea, and not afraid to challenge visitors’ assumptions about what they may encounter in a show
with that touts its tiny scale.
The art, in fact, expands beyond the walls of the museum’s Canaday Gallery. Gregory Euclide’s
environmental installation, "Take it With You – Toledo," created specifically for the show
from recycled materials gathered from the area including the museum itself, starts on the stairway on
the first floor and climbs, kudzu like up to the entrance of the gallery.
Curator Amy Gilman said she’d been toying with the idea for the show for several years. "For me
initially it was a response top the gargantuan in contemporary art," she said. "I love artists
who truly understand the importance of scale."
The artists in the exhibit, which continues through March 25, use "smallness in a variety of
ways," Gilman said. "Many of the works aren’t small. The ideas are not small." But in one
way, or another the artists either work in miniature or miniaturize larger concepts.
The exhibit is the rare major show at the museum (aside, of course, from the annual Toledo Area Artists
Exhibition) that includes a local artist. Charles Kanwischer, who teaches a Bowling Green State
University, is represented by a series of 10 drawings of homes from the neighborhood around the museum.

Kanwischer said he had been drawing the changing rural and suburban landscape around his home in
Waterville. He’s fascinated with the transformation of the environment a both natural and man-made, and
had become interested in exploring a more urban setting.

Charles Kanwischer
(Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

The homes portrayed are all within a mile of the museum from an area bounded by Detroit and Collingwood
avenues and I-75.
While some, Kanwischer said, may see signs of decay in his drawings, he sees the "loosening of the
urban core … as one order loosens, something replaces it."
He’d already completed a couple of the drawings when Gilman approached him about being part of the
exhibit.
Each 9-by-12-inch drawing is meticulously executed. Using a graphite stylus, Kanwischer uses builds the
drawings up from title dots, at times having to erase and redraw a scene. The result is almost
photo-realistic detail, and yet he imbues tem with a meditative quality.
Each drawing, Kanwischer said, takes as much as three weeks to complete – "this is a year’s
work," he said gesturing to the drawings in the gallery.
As he works the images "fill up my consciousness," he said. "To do this work at a high
level you have to be pulled in."
All the work in the show pulls the viewer in.
Joe Fig’s dioramas probably most meet a visitor’s expectation of a small world. Originally a painter, he
started creating three-dimensional portraits of artists in their studios. Some may just be a corner, but
others are entire buildings rendered in dollhouse scale.
Fig carefully furnishes the spaces with all the books, equipment and posters found in the subject’s
workplaces.
His self-portrait, includes models of both the work itself and another work in the show, "Ross
Bleckner."
With few exceptions he fashions all the tiny objects, after visiting the artists and taking precise
measurements.
The work of Lori Nix most upends the expectations of the concept of "Small Worlds." Her
photographic prints one four-by-six-feet depict abandoned post-apocalyptic scenes.
Some are ornate, like museums, a map room and libraries; some more mundane, a bar, a laundromat and a
beauty salon.

“Belmont Avenue” by
Charles Kanwischer (Photo by Keith Meiser/Toledo Museum of Art)

They all sit empty after some disaster that has stripped them of humanity except for the detritus left
behind.
And while monumental in scale, Nix actually constructs her scenes in a manner similar to Fig’s.
She and her partner create each scene using insulating foam, some found objects, like googly eyes, and
molding material.
Nix said she grew up in western Kansas, a self-described "product of the 1970s." She saw movies
such as "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Planet of the Apes," and experienced the
real-life extremes of weather.
Gilman said she’s wanted to work with Nix for awhile, and this setting seemed right. The show also
includes a hand-drawn animated video by Japanese artist Tabaimo, and outside in front of the museum a
Tumbleweed Tiny House, a 65-square-foot home.
The curator said she decided to feature a larger body of work by fewer artists to better allow the viewer
to enter their worlds.
Kanwischer said he enjoyed having his work exhibited in this setting. "You spend all your time in
your studio looking at your work," he said. "When I put it with other people’s work, you see
it in a whole different way."

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