This slender volume may look like a well-crafted paperback from an independent press, and so it is, but it is also a trapdoor of perception: a passage to a very, very tiny universe that may make you reconsider our own.
The Eye of the Needle is a succinct and elegant record of Hagop Sandaldjian's microminiatures - portraits etched on rice kernels and sculptures made of dust, paint specks, and human hair assembled under a 125-power microscope - told through vivid photographs and introduced by art critic/semiologist Ralph Rugoff in a biographical essay.
Sandaldjian, first a concert violist, musical instructor, and avid proponent of ergonomics, drew on the study of movement to excel at his microminiature craft. Because the pulse in his fingers could undo months of work, he taught himself to paint his creations between heartbeats. Those who watched him labor found the movement of his hands imperceptible.
His infinitesimal collection portrays larger-than-life figures - Donald Duck, Pope John Paul II, and Napoleon - at a smaller-than-life scale. (A cross held by his figure of the pontiff is a cross-section of human hair roughly two blood cells wide.)
Though included in shows here and there, Sandaldjain remained in relative obscurity until 1990, when the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California, prepared an exhibit of his greatest work. Sadly, the show opened a month after he passed away.
A half dozen of his works rotate in a permanent installation at the museum, where they are no doubt all the more miraculous - nonexistent until you put your eye to a showcase viewfinder. But if you can't make the trip, The Eye of the Needle brings these tiny monuments within wondrously intimate distance.
The Eye of the Needle: The Unique World of Microminiatures of Hagop Sandaldjian, with an essay by Ralph Rugoff: US$15. Museum of Jurassic Technology: +1 (310) 836 6131.
