One of my favorite museums in NYC is the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Located in Columbus Circle, it is a very manageable 4 floors of exhibits. What drew me was their current show entitled Otherwordly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities. It consists of "small-scale hand built depictions of artificial environments and alternative realities" aka dioramas and scale models. Something most of us made as kids, these are grown-up versions that are just breathtaking. Amy Bennett created a tiny hospital floor with different rooms and then makes paintings of her models. Oliver Boberg designed a city block of what looks like the Bronx, circa 1980s. Each diorama has a large photograph mounted near it and looking at them, you can't believe they are actually photos of models and not the real thing. I love hyperrealism as well as dioramas, so this exhibit was made for me.
Here are some NewNew artists' use of miniatures:
Aminyitray's Found Ossuary is just over 1.25 inches tall! What a unique necklace this would make.