Larger than life – Stranger than fiction

This triennial was established in Fellbach (Baden-Württemberg) in 1980 as a forum for contemporary sculptures. In 2010 the festival consciously returned its focus to small-format sculptures and miniaturization. The works by approximately 40 international artists demonstrated that “minuteness” is an aesthetic value in itself and revealed the enormous expressive potential of small sculptures which is so often underestimated.
The central theme of the 11th Small Sculpture Triennial was the human being, ranging from our exterior environments to our hidden inner worlds. In addition to sculptures and sculpture ensembles, the festival presented videos and films whose leading roles are played, for example, by clay figures or marionettes. The triennial also addressed the subject of proportions and the play on perception, i.e., familiar objects that become strange and uncanny as proportions and dimensions are shifted. Another main area concerned the representation of so-called “world molecules” which possess a restricted, but highly condensed view of reality. Their historic predecessors are likely the wunderkammer and miniature art of the Renaissance, as well as the condensed worlds depicted in dioramas, doll houses or tabletops. They all represent patterns of thought and perception in which imagination and reality merge on a minute scale.

Artistic director: Ulrike Groos
Participants / artists: Guy Bar-Amotz (GB), Wim Botha (ZA), Mark Dion (USA), Nathalie Djurberg (S), Marcel Dzama (CDN), Tessa Farmer (GB), Markus Karstiess, Friederike Klotz, Rachel Kneebone (GB), Klara Kristalova (S), Kris Martin (B), Tony Oursler (USA), Verena Pfisterer, Javier Téllez (USA), Klaus Weber, Yin Xiuzhen (CHN) and others