A tiny travelling art show is popping up at a new, tiny Vancouver art gallery this month.
The Tiny Dada Art Show, which has been popping up around the world, is making its Canadian debut in an East Vancouver Garage on Saturday, Aug. 24.
Created and curated by Vancouver artist Allison Beda, the show features more than 40 pieces of art from 30 artists, and all of it fits in a moderately sized backpack.
Tiny show grows from little idea
The idea for the show came from a few places, including a Parisian cafe and the issue that a lot of art and gallery spaces can seem imposing and intimidating.
"I'm trying to do something that's the opposite of that, that's not so precious," says Beda.
She first had the idea after an arts residency in France last year; she went to Café Beaubourg near the famous Centre Pompidou art museum. Inside there were little recesses in the wall where tiny plinths with statues had been set up.
Some spaces were left open, and Beda had the idea of holding a guerrilla Dadaist art show using the other spaces. The Dada movement is an avante-garde style that started over 100 years ago in Europe, rejecting logic and reason and embracing nonsense.
Beda says she was inspired by Dadaism, which she describes as being "anti-art-establishment," and about "making things and being a little joyful and having things be fun."
"It was random and chaotic and spontaneous," she adds.
She also likes the idea of tiny art being easier for artists to afford; art materials can be expensive, and storing and shipping finished pieces can be a financial burden.
"I think there's a movement of art being really, really big, so I wanted to counter that," Beda says.
The tiny art is more accessible, too, and is more likely to spark a conversation at the gallery, she points out.
"It's very safe, because it's ridiculous tiny little things, it's not big," she notes.
Bringing it home
While Beda is based in Vancouver and the event features local artists like Mark Mizgala, Jean Paul Langlois, and Lynn Budny, the Tiny Dada Art Show has never been shown here.
Over the past year, after its secret debut, it has travelled in Beda's luggage to Florence, Italy; New York City; and Eina, Norway, among other places across the United States and Europe.
The little show has travelled so much mostly due to word of mouth; Beda has met people at events (she works in the film industry as well) and art shows who've gone on to invite the show to their spaces, be it an apartment, studio or condo complex shared room.
Now Beda is turning her own house's garage into the Fake Gallery, which will host the show in the Commercial Drive neighbourhood.
"It has a very, very crappy concrete floor and very rough plywood walls," she notes. "It's not dangerous but it looks like somebody's garage in a 100-year-old house."
The show won't quite fill the garage, she adds. It's very small.
It opens Aug. 24 and runs to Sept. 11. Later in September, the little travelling art show heads to Dallas.
"We'll have a little reception in the driveway and then the show will be in the garage," says Beda, noting some artists will be calling in to do little chats.
Those who wish to attend the free show will have to line up a time with Beda, given she won't be hanging out in the gallery space the entire time the show is in Vancouver.
"It's not going to be open all the time," she notes. "You have to make an appointment to visit my scruffy garage."
That said, she's happy to have people come and see the show; she says a direct message on Instagram or an email to [email protected] would work.
