‘LE PETIT SALON'

Excerpts from an accompanying essay by Hector Campbell 

 

A homage to its Parisian predecessor, ‘Le Petit Salon’ focuses particularly on artworks made on a smaller scale, for which there is equal historical precedent as to their power and prominence. See, for example, 16th-century cabinets of curiosities, also known colloquially as wonder-rooms. These comprehensive collections of art and antiquities - which commonly included objects of geological or biological importance, archaeological finds and religious relics alongside preeminent works of art and literature - occupied small private rooms in palaces, castles and manors throughout Renaissance Europe, and served as the encyclopaedic precursors to many a modern museum collection. The prevalence and prestige of such cabinet rooms gave rise to a trend of corresponding cabinet paintings, artworks of smaller size that still typically depicted full figures, landscapes or large-scale scenes, their subject matter not limited by the diminution of the works themselves. In fact, due to the necessary precision and skill needed in their painting - perhaps best epitomised in examples by Raphael or Elsheimer - these artworks were equally as sought after and lauded as their larger counterparts.

 

In keeping with the variety found in classical Renaissance wonder-rooms, The Tagli’s exhibition presents paintings both figurative and abstract; sculptures of aluminium, ceramic and sterling silver; reliefs in resin and concrete; drawings adjacent to photographs; and moving image artworks alongside monoprints. And just like their cabinet antecedents, the reduced size of each artwork by no means diminishes their ability to tackle large concepts.

 

“…exhibited artists employ the smaller stature to play with perceived compositional constraints, such as Kris Lamorena’s ceramic portraits that become devotional and shrine-like thanks to their size.

 

Indeed, what all the artworks included in ‘Le Petit Salon’ have in common is their capacity for prolonged, personal engagement. Viewer and viewed meet each other on equal footing, the audience encouraged to lean in, inspect and interact with artworks that evoke attention precisely because of their shared scale, not in spite of it.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​