CARTAVETRA presents Preziose Miniature (Precious Miniatures), a special event hosted within the solo exhibition Moderato Cantabile by Svjetlan Junakovic. Conceived and curated by Stefania Balestri, the project brings together sixty-six national and international artists in a choral dialogue centered on the theme of the small format. Following its iterations in Palermo and Rome, the exhibition now arrives in Florence before continuing to new destinations.
Here, the small format becomes a territory for exploration and research into contemporaneity: an intimate, collected dimension through which the artists reflect on the relationship between scale, attention, and the gaze. Miniature art serves as a metaphor for the complexity of the present, inviting a slower, more deliberate form of viewing—one capable of grasping the profound density enclosed within the details.
Balestri, an artist among artists, gathers these works like fragments of a single visual thought. She composes them like pixels of a larger image, forming a mosaic of perspectives that reflects the plurality of contemporary sensibility. Like a kaleidoscope, the works interweave into a harmonious whole while preserving their individual identity. Preziose Miniature thus unfolds as a choral project: an invitation to share in art, creating empathy and connection through encounter and mutual discovery.
The artists present a striking variety of works: small sculptures, miniature artist’s books, small-scale paintings and photographs, embroideries, textile textures, little animals, shells, small boxes enclosing entire worlds, cubes containing secrets, and even a miniature library.
Within this multiplicity, a unified effect emerges: a celebration of the preciousness of the infinitely small. Scaled down, the object acquires a revealing power, much like toys or relics, where the intimacy of size transforms into a poetic language.
The miniature is therefore an invitation to slow down, to observe with care, and to restore depth to the act of looking in an era that all too often outpaces the present.
ARTISTS:
Corrado Agricola, Maria Cristiana Amendola, Brunella Baldi, Stefania Balestri, Gianluigi Balsebre, Maura Banfo, Giovanni Bartolozzi, Lisa Mara Batacchi, Renzo Bellanca, Riccardo Biondi, Erica Briani Pereyra, Maria Grazia Brusegan, Myriam Cappelletti, Antonella Capponi, Silvia Cardini, Shilha Cintelli, Caterina Ciuffetelli, Cecilia Cosci, Vittoria DeBlassie, Connie Dekker, Mattia Desideri, Pietro Desirò, Brigitte Deval, Maria Deval, Ankie van Dijk, Gianni Dorigo, Laura VdB Facchini, Claudia di Francesco, Antonia Fontana, Giovanni Galizia, Delio Gennai, Federica Gonnelli, Alessandra Jane, Hanako Kumazawa, Francesco Landucci, Carolina Lombardi, Irene Lupi, Gabriele Mallegni, Anna Marzuttini, Silvia Noferi, Piero Angelo Orecchioni, Daniela Perego, Lorenzo Pezzatini, Stefania Puntaroli, Roberto Pupi, Claudia Quintieri, Francesca Ricci, Duccio Ricciardelli, Rachele Ronchi, Mela Salemi, Stefania Salvadori, Caterina Sbrana, Pietro Schillaci, Alessandro Secci, Simoncini.Tangi, Giovanna Sparapani, Chiara Tambani, Serena Tani, Erwin Taramajesko, Aldo Taranto, Nicoletta Testi, Paola Romoli Venturi, Margherita Verdi, Tatiana Villani, Elisa Zadi, Virginia Zanetti.