The Midget Gallery was founded by Polish artist Katarzyna Kozyra as an artist’s project, an anti-format of one artist and seven midget gallery managers. A gallery that, being a work of art, did not want to remain at the safe stage of a purely conceptual project, the Midget Gallery participates in the mainstream of art events, but on its own terms. After “squatting” the 4th Berlin Biennial by wandering without a seat along Auguststrasse and having been kicked out of Frieze Art Fair, ending up playing cards at its entrance, this time the Midget Gallery, supported by a collector, went to Art Basel in order to buy an artwork to be added in his collection.
With $20.000 at their disposal, the midgets first made a detailed appraisal of the collection they had to enrich, showing great seriousness and professionalism. Inside the art fair, they discussed with gallerists and art dealers asking for prices and trying to reserve artworks. Considering the artworks sold before the preview, those which were too expensive or could not be taken down from the walls to be brought home as the dwarves would have liked – in the end, the Midget Gallery didn’t manage to make a purchase. The task ended up being more difficult than expected: if it is not easy to sell, it is even more difficult to buy.
However, there was a positive outcome: unknowingly, the Midget Gallery had twice chosen the work of the same artist, Richard Jackson. After more than a year of discussion by email and phone with the gallerist and the artist, the artist agreed to produce an artwork worth less than $20.000, the neon sculpture DICK DUCK. The mission set out by the Midget Gallery at Art Basel wanted to be a genuine inquiry of the art market by facing it with its own means, but from a subordinate point of view.
Artist’s project by Katarzyna Kozyra
Supported by the DESTE Foundation
For additional information please visit the Midget Gallery’s website
