Sarah Sze

by Benjamin H D Buchloh, Okwui Enwezor, Laura Hoptman

The first substantial monograph on an artist whose sculptures capture the proliferation of information and objects in contemporary life. Sarah Sze has developed a sculptural aesthetic that transforms space through radical shifts in scale, colonizing peripheral spaces, engaging with the history of a building, and altering the viewer's perception and experience of architecture through large, site-specific interventions. Known for her unexpected and carefully arranged combinations of materials, from cotton buds and tea bags to ... Read More

The first substantial monograph on an artist whose sculptures capture the proliferation of information and objects in contemporary life. Sarah Sze has developed a sculptural aesthetic that transforms space through radical shifts in scale, colonizing peripheral spaces, engaging with the history of a building, and altering the viewer's perception and experience of architecture through large, site-specific interventions. Known for her unexpected and carefully arranged combinations of materials, from cotton buds and tea bags to water bottles and ladders, light bulbs and electric fans, Sze has presented ephemeral installations that penetrate walls, suspend from ceilings and burrow into the ground. Her work exists at the intersection of sculpture, drawing and architecture where her formal interest in light, air and movement is coupled with an intuitive understanding of colour and texture. Like the scientific instruments of measurement they often reference, Sze's sculptures attempt to quantify and organize the universe, ascribing a fragile, personal system of order. Within her practice, sculpture becomes both a device for organizing and dismantling information and a mechanism to locate and dislocate oneself in time and space. Read Less