Hiding Red Paint

Leo puts 27 small 1x1x1 cubes together to build a 3x3x3 cube. He then paints all six faces of the big cube with red paint. After that, he rearranges the small cubes to a new 3x3x3 cube by minimizing the area of red paint on the surface. What is the red surface area of the rearranged 3x3x3 cube?