Little Boxes

Curated by Risa Shoup

September 13 - October 19, 2014

Cuchifritos Gallery & Project Space, New York, NY

Delicate, miniature domestic scenes form contained narratives born of my personal reflections on childhood, family, and heredity. Encapsulated under glass or in wooden shadowboxes, these episodic contemplations are stagings of the discordance between the façade and the fact of the matter, between the romance of our ideals and the corners they work us into.

Curtains of dishtowels drawn across the gallery windows and doors obscure all contents of the exhibition within. Inside, a minimalistic configuration of white pedestals and a partition wall convey a curious sense of vacancy, while several pairs of binoculars at the center of the gallery inquisitively suggest closer looking. Gradual, attentive navigation of the modified floor plan reveals the obscure corners, seams, and spaces that now play host to miniature domestic scenes or interiors inspired by vendors at the market. Though seemingly isolated events, these site-specific installations and framed works’ detailed distortions in scale subtly serve as a compass connecting to other potentially hidden pieces. Staggered, suspended, inverted, buried, and covered, Little Boxes challenges conceptions of physical space, personal space, and the lives we lead within them.

Above video by Callejero Films, Inc.