Small Is Beautiful – 79-85 Old Brompton Road, London

A review of Small is Beautiful, on now in South Kensington and brought to you by experience specialists Fever. Is it commercial? Sure. Is it fun looking at all the tiny things? Definitely!

Small is Beautiful

Let me begin today’s post with a disclaimer. I was on the fence about whether I would go to see Small is Beautiful. Until, that is, I realised where it was on view. 85 Old Brompton Road is where I worked for several years, and I have a lot of nostalgic feelings about it. I had a fair idea it had remained empty since its last tenants vacated, so I was very curious to see what it was like now. So as I walked around Small is Beautiful my head was partly in this space as well as looking at this exhibition itself. You can’t blame me though, I’m sure you would do the same!

But back to the matter at hand. What is Small is Beautiful, anyway? Well, it’s an exhibition of art which is small. Just how small depends on the artist. Because it turns out there are a lot of different ways to make tiny art. There is Slinkachu who stages tiny scenes and then abandons them for someone to find (or step on?). There’s Samsofy who works with Lego. Marc Giai-Miniet who creates fantastical cross-sections of buildings. Or Jasenko Đorđrević who sculpts impressive things out of pencil leads. Over a fairly large exhibition space with a few works per artist, Small is Beautiful really runs the gamut.

The Commercial Imperative In Art

In fact there was such a variety of things on view (some of them smaller than others) that it left me wondering if this was not so much a curated exhibition as an exhibition that an artist would apply to take part in. With an important follow up question: does that matter? You come to Small is Beautiful to see tiny things. It definitely delivers. It’s really quite a lot of fun seeing all the creativity and sense of joy that the artists bring to their work. Should we get ourselves tied up in gatekeeping around exhibitions vs. experiences?

Probably not. Especially since Fever, the company who brought us Small is Beautiful, seem to be on a roll. They were behind Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience which I saw last winter. They’ve got similar experiences with the art of Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera and Gustav Klimt. They do various candlelit concerts around different venues in the city. And the space at South Kensington is actually split in two, with the other half housing Dopamineland, “an interactive museum of dopamine inducing sensory experiences”. This is culture for the social media age, but at the same time it’s entertaining, adds variety to the cultural landscape, and (maybe importantly as we lurch from one crisis to the next) fills otherwise empty spaces in our cities.

And after all, isn’t art often commercial anyway? That exhibition of a private collection: doesn’t it help cement its importance and thus value? All those Basquiat exhibitions: is there no connection to record auction prices? So what I’m saying is, let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Now back to the tiny art.

Enjoying Art In Miniature

I really rather enjoyed Small is Beautiful. I love tiny things to begin with, so I was going to be an easy convert. But the exhibition is fairly well-laid out, with a good flow between different sections (a couple of confusing spots are due to the split with Dopamineland). The works are nicely presented, with enlargements of some of them to add variety to looking at little things in glass cases. And there are some very fun elements, like half a dozen or so artworks ‘in the wild’ for you to spot. For example tiny people parachuting off the first aid kit, using plasters as their parachutes. Or a scene of relaxation in an ashtray, with a hammock strung up between two cigarette butts. There’s a real sense of delight when you spot these.

Another element I liked was a video where a number of the artists show their working practices or give an insight into what they do. It’s positioned so that you have seen most of their work by the time you come to the video, so can connect to the content. Unfortunately it’s also partitioned off from the entrance to Dopamineland so there were one or two videos I couldn’t quite hear over the dopamine-induced excitement.

For me, Small is Beautiful was worth the trek to South Kensington for an hour or so’s enjoyment of all things tiny. If it sounds like you, then go ahead and book (or consider a double bill with Dopamineland?). If you are a culture gatekeeper then it may not be for you, but if you like a bit of fun then why wait?

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

Small is Beautiful currently booking until 17 July 2022