When Dimensions Variable, an artist-run alternative gallery and 2011 Knight Arts Challenge winner, first opened up in September of 2009, it lived up to its promise of being an offbeat, off-kilter space.
Set in a former storefront in the Design District, the gallery was really just the front area of the space, cordoned off from the much bigger section of artists’ studios in the back. It was an odd space to work within, the outer wall being all glass windows and a door, leaving only three walls and the floor for artists to utilize for exhibition purposes. But the inaugural exhibit, “Buildup,” perfectly set the tone for the years to come. Created by New York-based Shane Aslan Selzer and superb Miami sculptor Tom Scicluna, it wasn’t a typical installed show. When it “opened” on Sept. 8, each artist, working individually, came in that evening and, for the next two months, made and placed sculpture to fit in the gallery, until the show’s culmination on Oct. 30. That was when the installation was fully finished–and when it closed.
