Inspired Monday Morning: Thomas Struth / June 9, 2014 by Raji Radhakrishnan

You have probably guessed it by now - I have a thing for grand gestures. In fact, grand spaces as cavernous as they are and sometimes impractical and unnecessary, do create a very strong emotion in me. I think it's one of the reasons I absolutely love the great, big museums around the world. I've also learned that grand gestures in design are best appreciated when they go hand in hand with subtle and small gestures. In my work, very few realize the small design juxtapositions that create a rather large and meaningful impact in a very personal way. Never mind they don't always get noticed. They do the job quietly and beautifully. The large gestures certainly do get all the attention - like my murals. But, if I don't exercise the control to select the right space, the right subject, the right scale and colors and most importantly the very meaningful and small gestures that go with the larger ones - mind you they will cease to have the impact they usually do. And almost always it's the smaller, unnoticed gestures that clinch these larger than life designs making the room tell a story.

I can honestly say, I learned these inertia-ted subtleties of design by observing artists I adore. Particularly one - Thomas Struth. His Museum series of photographs enthrall me till date. Each a great story, each an exercise in grandeur and subtlety, the perfect complement of the big and the small. Of pride and humility. Of monumental scale and human proportions. Most importantly of dreams and reality and how they are so necessary to wisk one away to large fantasies only to come right back to the reality of how very small we really are in the grand scheme of things. And you guessed it...il est tout ma tasse de thé!

All Thomas Struth' photos via Tumblr & The New Yorker;