Small is Beautiful: A Journey Into Miniature Art Debuts in Milan

After captivating 250,000 visitors across Paris, New York, and Brussels, the internationally renowned exhibition “Small is Beautiful” makes its Italian debut in Milan. Housed by Milan’s leading cultural aggregation center Fabbrica del Vapore, this extraordinary showcase takes visitors on a journey beyond reality, immersing them into a world of miniature dimensions where one feels like a giant navigating a universe as small as the tip of a finger.

Collectively hosting the exhibition are Fever, the pioneering entertainment platform, and Exhibition Hub, producer of large exhibitions across the world, “Small is Beautiful” opens its doors on May 9, 2024. Curated by Serge Victoria, the exhibition transforms miniature art into a major artistic genre, presenting an incredible exploration through minutely detailed worlds, rich in poetic expression and unfettered imagination.

19 miniature artists from all over the world showcases their works in art forms such as painting, photography, sculpture and even crochet, incorporating different media from paper, food, pencil tips and even recycle materials. These pieces, some merely millimeters in size, require powerful magnifying glasses to fully observe their intricate details. Walking through the exhibition hall, it is hard to not appreciate the boundless imagination, remarkable patience and exceptional virtuosity these artists have dedicated to their works.

The exhibition burgeons from social network. Curator Serge Victoria noticed a decent number of miniature artists sharing their creations on social media, giving him ideas on building a platform to showcase the beauty of miniature art in all facets. “Small is Beautiful” not only aims to bring miniature art to a wider audience and offer a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of it, but also seeks to foster a community eager to embrace all dimensions of art.

The title, “Small is Beautiful,” harks back to economist Leopold Kohr’s advocacy for human-scaled societies in his student Ernst Friedrich Schumacher’s 1973 book “Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.” Kohr championed the idea of reducing scales in various domains—economics, ecology, governance—to counteract the norm of gigantism. The meticulous attention to detail and the diminutive scale of the artworks challenge our perceptions, guiding us to ponder the beauty and complexity of smallness in a world that often prioritizes the big.

“Small is Beautiful” will be at Milan’s Fabbrica del Vapore, in Spazio Messina from May 9^th 2024 to September 22^nd 2024.