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Solo
Exhibition by Sarah Sze Project
Description Born in 1969 in Boston, Sze lives and works in New York City. She began exhibiting in 1996 and has since participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the 2000 Whitney Biennial and the 1999/2000 Carnegie International Exhibition. She has had solo shows at the Cartier Foundation in Paris (1999-2000), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999), and Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1998). Sze’s early success is that of an artist whose work has evolved quickly from its more formal beginnings to its current, more freeform state. In earlier installations, Sze organized small found objects such as toothpicks, candy, plastic cups, clothespins, and pencils into fairly orderly arrangements that were dependent upon their wall, floor, or shelf supports. In her more recent projects, the connection between the architectural supports and her work has become more tenuous and its relationship to space more complex. Gravity-defying constructions of everyday stuff project from or toward a wall or ceiling with awe-inspiring ingenuity. In her Carnegie Museum installation, Sze masterfully slowed down or sped up the work with her characteristic use of eccentric, mass-produced goods. Siding material whipped through the space and concentrations of forms such as live plants with water misters stopped viewers who came in close for a better view. At the Cartier Foundation, Sze worked for the first time on a large scale, taking over the 8,000 square-foot first floor galleries. Sze found the Jean Nouvel-designed space, with the many reflections from its glass walls and views to the trees outside, to be a particular challenge. She used aluminum ladders, which resembled the building’s metal beams, and stretched and extended them from one of her whimsical constructions to the next. Sze became interested in using ladders because, according to her, they negotiate the body’s relationship to a building. Her recent focus on fire escapes stems from similar concerns, and the CCS project will be her first installation of such a form. CCS
Project Sze’s project is her a departure for her – the only works she has created for an outdoor rural site. It will be professionally fabricated to withstand the elements. After much observation of the CCS building and its place within a country setting, Sze decided to abandon her original idea of creating a fire escape for the building because of what she believed to be the overwhelmingly urban reference of such a piece. Sze’s exhibition at the CCS will coincide with an artist’s project by Tony Feher. Although the exhibitions are separate, and each will have its own catalogue, their pairing is deliberate. Sze and Feher use similar materials – the everyday objects that we take for granted – toward different sculptural ends. While Sze’s project will be outside on the building, Feher’s show will be inside the CCS. Catalogue This exhibition is made possible by grants from The Peter Norton Family Foundation, LEF Foundation and Marieluise Hessel. |
