Join Dean Suzy Paalman and /m staff as we view and then compare Charles and Ray Eames' epic, nine-minute, animated film "Powers of Ten" (1977) with Polly Apfelbaum's "Sampling a Sampler Sampling" (2024).

"Powers of Ten" (1977) by Los Angeles-based designers Charles and Ray Eames, is about relative scale. It starts with an overhead shot of a couple sunbathing on a picnic blanket. The camera then zooms out to the point that the couple, then the earth are engulfed by first the solar system, then the galaxy. Midway through the film, the progression resets and the camera zooms in to the level of molecules and atoms. "It brilliantly anticipates Google Earth," wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

"Sampling a Sampler Sampling" (2024) will showcase a new, site-specific work by Polly Apfelbaum, made from fabric samples and remnants purchased in New York's Garment District. It will be a "painting", occupying most of the gallery's floor. The work will pose such fundamental questions as, "What is painting?" "What is originality?" "What is order?" and "What are the bases of our judgments?", and finally, "What do we look down on?"