"Beyond Big: Oversized Prints, Drawings and Photographs"
2005-03-16 until 2005-07-03
Detroit Institute of Art
Detroit, MI, USA

A classic etching by James McNeill Whistler, a contemporary print by Jasper Johns and the image of a calla lily by Robert Mapplethorpe will be brought together with 45 additional works from the Detroit Institute of Arts’ (DIA) collection in the exhibition Beyond Big: Oversized Prints, Drawings and Photographs. This exhibition, featuring pieces as early as the 1500s and many very recent acquisitions on view for the first time, explores the concept of what is considered “big” in graphic arts.

In the last half of the 20th century, advances in technology have permitted artists to create prints and photographs of unprecedented scale. With equipment and paper now being produced in sizes that rival dimensions that only paintings and some drawings achieved in the past, the nature of composition is as broad as it has ever been. In this exhibition, it will be apparent that a viewer’s interpretation of art can be altered depending on the format in which it is presented, whether true-to-life, miniaturized or enlarged.

This exhibition presents many recently acquired large works on paper such as photographs by Abelardo Morrell, Anna Gaskell, Jenny Gage, Justin Kurland and Gregory Crewdson with prints by Mimmo Palladino and Jasper Johns, along with drawings and other older posters already in the collection by such artists as Claes Oldenburg, Michael Luchs and Charles Burchfield, among many others.

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