Born as a sophisticated painterly light show on the borderline between art and entertainment, dioramas have been a popular visual aid in natural history museums since the early 20th century. This format of presentation, which combines painting techniques, scenic solutions and optical illusion in the delimited space of a box, creates an appearance of reality to demonstrate facts – including scientific knowledge – to a lay audience. While it involves many creative forms, the diorama is a little discussed genre of visual art.
The exhibition, Smaller Worlds explores the genre of the diorama in an entertaining manner, though its inquiry is technical. Featuring artists from Hungary, the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Trinidad, Syria, Canada and Poland, the exhibition makes Ludwig Museum a pioneer of an artistic-psychological-philosophical investigation into the genre.

The exhibition is on view between 14 October and 15 January.