A Cloth Over a Birdcage at Château Shatto

On view from July 27th – September 7th.

In the fashion district’s Bendix Building, a new hub for art galleries and studios, Château Shatto presents a unique take on the summer group show format: everything’s tiny. In an art world where bigger is often better (and will sell for more), A Cloth Over a Birdcage advocates for a small, intimate size (what the press release calls, “modestly scaled to the truly petite”). The scale forces you to get cozy with each painting on view, trying to decipher each small brush stroke. Gertrude Abercrombie’s Untitled clocks in at just three inches, and depicts a snail shell at one-to-one scale; Issy Wood’s bite-sized portraits of Joan Rivers upend the outsized persona of the celebrity. Though for some of the artists included, this small size might act as a study for what would be a larger work, Alexandra Noel’s whole body of work happens in miniature. Also contrasting the scant paintings included is the view from the gallery’s 10th floor windows that look out across downtown and beyond.