Richard McMahan's MiniMuseum, at the College of Charleston's Addlestone Library

I'd like to note that I disagree categorically with the comments made by the anonymous commentators (actually a single person who has a personal problem with Richard McMahan) in this post. I've disabled future comments on this post as a way of keeping "Anonymous" from posting more drivel. Please, if you bother reading Anonymous's comments, keep in mind the basically unhinged nature of their personality, and don't let them influence your opinion of a fantastic artist.

***Images from the full collection***

Libraries don’t usually have art. When they do have art, it’s generally the sort of installation dreamed up by head librarians with too little free time, or student art groups with WAY too much free time.

So I was surprised at the amount of thought and effort which had gone into the College of Charleston library’s most recent exhibit, Richard McMahan’s MINImuseum. The exhibit showcases about 4000 painted and sculpted pieces, and was designed and set up in just under a month.


The college is justifiably proud of their display, which was planned by students from the architectural school, and fabricated using some apparently cutting edge* automated laser systems.


From the exhibit’s brochure:

“For the past eighteen years, Richard McMahan has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art. This Florida savant has an exceptional talent for producing tiny images representing famous art in museum collections such as the Hermitage, the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. Though he has never been to any of these museums in person, this self-taught artist has studied these works through books in his local library in Jacksonville.

McMahan began his collection by working from photographs he found in over one hundred years of National Geographic Magazines. Included in this worldwide tour are cave paintings, a rendition of an Egyptian tomb (complete in all of its parts), art nouveau furniture, sculpture, graphic arts, drawings, paintings, and a wry selection of contemporary art.”

As with any collection of miniatures, I’m reminded of the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” museums (coincidentally, the franchise is also based in Florida). The exhibit uses a few visual techniques popularized by that sort of museum, placing several pieces in recesses which force the spectator to move closer to that portion of the exhibit for a good look.


In the Egyptian art section, we contorted ourselves to peer through pvc pipes at McMahan’s recreations of tomb architecture and murals. I remembered the intricate images of Egyptian pyramid traps I’d grown up with in grade school, and wondered which of the pipes housed a very cruel joke.


Magnifying glasses were included, furthering the sensation of exploration.


The exhibit is ordered by period – trying to take in each period in a single photograph, I was reminded of Kathrynn Reffi’s Color Recordings (described in detail at Local Ephemera), an attempt to record and catalog the predominate colors throughout a 7 day span of the artist’s life.


Cringe.


The history of art, under a single rotunda. So much cheaper and faster than visiting all those museums.



McMahan's sculpture work (the "twigs" in the second image are carved pieces of wood) is wonderfully exact.




Of course, the whole exhibit leaves me pondering the question of art duplication. These are a few questions I would have liked to ask McMahan at his artist talk this Saturday:

What tools did you use for your painting?
Which pieces took you the longest?
Which periods?
When you recreate a work, how do you know when it's finished? Are you trying to copy the images, or the spirit?


*Pun!