this one is smaller than this one.
curated by Paulina Bębecka
January 30 - March 19, 2016

Elliott Young | Nick van Woert | Lawrence Weiner | Xu Wang | Radek Szlaga | Agathe Snow | Harriet Salmon | Ryder Ripps | Pussykrew | Niki de Saint Phalle | Serkan Özkaya | Jennifer Catron & Paul Outlaw | Narcissister | Jenny Morgan | Jonathan Monaghan | Laura Murray | Gregg Louis | Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens | Kristen Jensen | Daria Irincheeva | Andrew Thomas Huang | Hugh Hayden | C.J. Chueca | Monica Cook | James Case-Leal | John Byam | Olaf Breuning | Bogyi Banovich

Postmasters is pleased to present an exhibition of small sculptures and big ideas. The works in the show - made from porcelain (both sculpted and 3D printed), ceramics or bronze, as well as less traditional materials such as horse manure, pixels, and words - were created by 28 artists between 1980 and now, measure one inch to two feet, and aim to address concepts of love, religious mass suicide, bio-tech spores, vagrancy, identity, alchemy, economic equilibrium and digital artifacts, among others.

This exhibition is my offering for you, the viewer, to rediscover small scale. If you are still at a loss of experience, rub the bronze nose for good luck on your way out.

Artists have an ability to move monumental ideas through their art into our minds and souls. Personally, some of my most meaningful experiences include conversations with artists enveloped by the totality of their preoccupations, obsessions, imagination, knowledge, and interpretations. The title of the exhibition this one is smaller than this one. manifested itself into existence through the mind of the poet Robert Fitterman, during one such memorable conversation around a dinner table.

Roberta Smith is rumored* to have flirted that the best works of art are those which one can take home in a taxi. It is not necessary for art to take gigantic form to convey its supposed meaning(s). The scale is irrelevant if not distinctly premeditated to support a set purpose. The physicality of sculpture has a visceral effect on the viewer's body and so, at the Istanbul Biennial, the small fragile graph sculptures of Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, made of sticks, string, foil, and paper, immediately seduce the eye as these simple materials is all it took to represent the complexity of economic theories and current statistical data. For this exhibition Ibghy and Lemmens reimagined variations of the unattainable concept of the economic equilibrium in the new series All the Kings Horsemen. Starting off with the graph sculptures, the search began for other modestly scaled representations of grand themes in art.

C. J. Chueca, a Peruvian artist, based in NYC sculpts portraits of the homeless men and women she works with through the Coalition For The Homeless or encounters on streets. Chueca arranges mundane objects, such as dice, erasers, sticks and cardboard to form these portraits, which she then carefully molds by hand into precious porcelain wall reliefs, a portion of the sales of which will directly support the efforts of the Coalition For The Homeless.**

The mystical axis of evil manifests itself plenty fold throughout the exhibition beginning with the seemingly innocent and seductive ceramic mini cups coated with cancerogenic gunmetal paint by the British artist Elliott Young. Olaf Breuning's humorous wooden work, Kaboom, is a representation of the not so funny atomic bomb mushroom cloud. Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw restaged the crime scene of Heaven's Gate deliberate mass suicide. This work is complete with the distinct ceramic black-and-white Nike Decades standing beside each of the sect member's 39 miniscule bunk beds.

Global climate issues run with the golden cicada swarms by Laura Murray, plastic predatory botanicals of Bogyi Banovich and Pussykrew's speculative future life forms - the one-inch, one-cell spores, which result from mutations of biological organisms with machines. The virtual sculptures of Andrew Thomas Huang, Hyperskins,cycle in an infinite loop through multiple surfaces, textural incarnations inspired by the philosophy of "hyper objects" by Timothy Morton - the idea that today's objects lack a "discreteness" and instead are pervasive, multidimensional and ever-changing throughout phases of time, space and relative orientation to other objects independent of human consciousness.

Ryder Ripps comments on the question of how does one commodify the popularity of digital ephemera by rarifying one of the most popular internet memes, Pepe The Frog, rendering it in 15 ounces of 18 karat solid gold - effectively creating the rarest Pepe in the world. The Rare Pepe, or Why Post-Internet Art Is Stupid also has a his own website goldpepe.com. This ubiquitous meme started in 2005 and has been seen on everywhere from your mom's feed to Miley Cyrus'. The meme's irony is that one digital image can be "rarer" than another, which is also its punchline.

-Paulina Bębecka

*Rumored because I can't locate the written reference, but I have it on good authority that Roberta Smith has said this once. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

** Design by Tamas Banovich

*** To help The Coalition for the Homeless, please visit their website www.coalitionforthehomeless.org or make a direct coat donation through amazon.com.

**** The exhibition will travel to Gallerist, Istanbul, Turkey in April 2016.

	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Agathe Snow Suck-Hole 2016 rubber plug, rubber cast breast, enamel, aluminum chain 4.5 x 4.5 x 3inches
	Daria Irincheeva Spawn 2015 found rusted spray paint container, found asphalt, found piece of a road, epoxy 14 x 11 x 7 inches
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Ryder Ripps Rare Pepe, Or Why Post Internet Art is Stupid 2015 15 oz. 18 karat gold, website goldpepe.com 3 x 4 x 3 inches unique
	Xu Wang Golden Venture 2016 sugar 7 x 4 x 3 inches unique
	Jonathan Monaghan Roy 2015 3D printed porcelain, 3D printed 18K gold plated brass 4.6 x 2.5 x 7.5 inches edition 4 of 5 + 1 AP
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Elliot Young Toxic 2015 ceramic 1-2 inches in diameter each
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Harriet Salmon Tetrahedron 2016 hand-carved maple, ceramic, felt, Velcro From the series "Platonic Solids," 25 x 25 x 25 inches
	Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw In the Future the Past will be different. (Part 2) 2016 wood, ceramic, fabric 28 x 28 x 10 inches
	Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw In the Future the Past will be different. (Part 2) (detail) 2016 wood, ceramic, fabric 28 x 28 x 10 inches
	Radek Szlaga BOZIA 2016 melted plastic, toy cars, bulldozers, tractors 12 x 8 x 3.5 inches
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Kristen Jensen Idle Rice, 2011-2016, unglazed porcelain Long cig, 2012, unglazed porcelain with luster Untitled, 2015, oversize jawbreaker with gold leaf Smile III, 2014, glazed porcelain Bottlecap, 2015, porcelain with iron oxide 2 x 12 x 18.5 inches overall installation
	this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	Olaf Breuning Kaboom(left) 2015 wood, paint 9 x 3 x 10 inches Life Sucks 2015 wood, paint 22 x 11.5 x 5 inches
	Nick van Woert Untitled 2015 nickel plated electroformed copper, plastic statue, stainless steel base 14.5 x 6 x 4 inches
	Monica Cook Cobra 2015 stockings, acrylic paint, porcupine quills, baby nasal aspirator, wire, silicone 12 x 8 x 9 inches
	C.J. Chueca this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	C.J. Chueca Neal 2015 ceramic 9.25 x 3.5 x 2 inches
	James Case-Leal White lead teeth with extinct flowers (foreground) 2016 lead, lead carbonate, copper, pigment 7 x 4 x 2 inches My parents teeth cast in lead in a box of horse shit turning white in the same way dutch masters made white pigment for paint 2016 acrylic, lead, horse manure, white vinegar 10 x 10 x 10 inches
	John Byam this one is smaller than this one. 2016 Installation View
	John Byam airplane, n.d. wood, glue, sawdust 1 1/2 x 4 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches
	John Byam Untitled, n.d. wood, glue, sawdust 2.75 x 5 x 2.5 inches
	Hugh Hayden Zelig (foreground) 2013 sharptail grouse feathers on logs 10.5 x 18.5 x 15 inches Hugh Hayden Untitled 2016 human hair embedded in silicone on panel 12 x 6 x 5 inches edition of 3 + AP
	Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens All the Kings Horsemen 2016 Installation View
	Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens Marginal Cost to Society 2016 mixed media 6.25 x 7.25 x 2 inches Incentive Monotonicity in Games 2016 mixed media 6 x 7.5 x 2 inches
	Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens Market Failure Arising from Negative Externalities 2016 mixed media 6 x 8 x 2 inches
	Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens Nash Equilibrium a. 2016 mixed media 6 x 7.5 x 2 inches
	Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens Market Equilibrium 2016 mixed media 6 x 6 x 6 inches
	Jenny Morgan Devotion 2016 balsa wood and wire 7 x 4 x 2 inches
	Hugh Hayden Woodpecker (new natives) 2012 domestic Chinese ring neck pheasant feathers on found hammer 6.5 x 3.5 x 1.5 inches
	Lawrence Weiner THE ABROGATION OF THE INHERENT DESTINY OF ANY OBJECT AT HAND 1998 LANGUAGE + THE MATERIALS REFERRED TO dimensions vary
	Bogyi Banovich Corner 2016 plastic 9 x 8 x 9 inches Little Creeper 2016 plastic 4 x 3 x 3 inches Pawn 2016 plastic 6 x 3 x 3 inches 3 Flowers 2016 plastic 11 x 12 x 9 inches
	Niki De Saint Phalle BAIGNEURS OU DANSEURS - BATHERS OR DANCERS 1980/1981 painted polyester with mat acrylic varnish 20 x 19 x 13 3/4 inches (51 x 48 x 35 cm) edition 50 of 150
	Pussykrew Spore 001 2016 1 x 1.2 x 1.35 inches Spore 002 2016 1 x 1 x .75 inches Spore 003 2016 1 x .9 x .9 inches Spore 004 2016 .8 x .8 x .85 inches 3D printed plastic edition of 12 + 2AP each