"Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities"

When it comes to shows at MAD, you can always expect a certain wow factor, and "Otherworldly" should be no exception. The curators have rounded up more than 25 contemporary artists who create miniature models or dioramas depicting realms of the imagination. Lori Nix, for example, has fashioned a tiny ruined beauty parlor, complete with a ripped-up linoleum floor and a sink pulled from the wall; it looks like something straight out of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, post-Katrina. The Chadwicks (the collaborative team of sculptor Jimbo Blachly and literary prof Lytle Shaw) have conjured an Elizabethan pub that's a literal microbrewery. And David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton constructed a 1950s-style midtown office fit for the cast of Mad Men—if they were about two inches tall. These and other Lilliputian wonders are on view, a reminder that it is a small world after all.