About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe

Martin Beck’s video work ‘About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe’ (2007) continues his longstanding interest in the history of exhibitions. The video shows the gradual assembley and disassembley of a reproduction of the 1948 Struc-Tube exhibition system, a portable and infinitely expandable display structure designed by the American designer George Nelson in 1948. The video is installed at Casco in a specially built screening-environment composed of four suspended panels, and is contextualized with works by Sol LeWitt, Eadweard Muybridge, and an assortment of books on modern exhibition history.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication on the work (also titled 'About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe') with essays by Bill Horrigan, Emily Pethick and Martin Beck, which contextualize the work and elaborate on aspects of sovereignity and control in modern exhibition history, co-published by Four Corners Books, London.

‘About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe’ is a satellite programme of Utrecht Manifest, 2007, the second biennial for social design.