Annetta Kapon "Not Actual Size" 2013

total installation dimensions 11.5' X 11.5' X 11.5'

Katy Cowan wrote of the phrase ‘not actual size’ as a linguistic tool employed in photographic documentation to reveal relativity of size as indicative for the potential usage of a thing. The phrase calls attention to the mechanics of representation in advertising a product, tool, or situation – in the context of Proxy Gallery’s uniquely small space, this language game effectively and humorously displaces the observer. Annetta Kapon has enlarged a photograph of the two inches on a common tape measure, cut out the print, and propped it up as a foot high sculpture; in the piece's shadow rests a miniature bench with miniature viewer, gazing at both the artwork and the seeming billboard that humbly reads *not actual size. At these different moments the viewer does not know if they are the observer of the artwork, the dioramic scene, or if their looking is what creates the work on display. Kapon screws with our understanding of ‘it is what it is’ by offering multiple points to understand exactly what something can be, by showing what it is also not. A persistent revealing of mechanisms, hasty showmanship, and joking undertones, successfully situates Kapon’s work at the site of the receiver.

-Katy Cowan