I’m trying to remember how I found out about Sarah Sze. I’m pretty sure it was from my Women in Art History class last semester. I did a search for “women installation artists” and was like, whoa, how come I hadn’t heard about her already? Likely answer: I’m a newbie art undergrad. She’s pretty famous.
Sarah Sze is an American artist, born in 1969, works and lives in New York, has a BA from Yale in 1991 and an MFA from the School of the Visual Arts (1997). Her resume reads like an artist’s fantasy. She shows internationally constantly and has her work in many galleries and museums all over the place (see bottom of article). Probably one of the most unique locations is on the High Line in New York City, which Anna, Peter & I had the pleasure of visiting last year. The photo below, though, is from an exhibit in Brazil.
Photo: Sarah Sze “Everything In the Right Place” 2002, Brazil Bienal
Her work is fun, whimsical, and uses everyday objects, plants, fans… she runs the gamut in her materials. Her works seem to stretch through the spaces where they are installed, with many points of interest and activity. I really like her use of line, shape, and color. Her work makes me feel like I am at a birthday party – it is happy, exuberant, and pulling together many elements of life. In the Art in America Magazine article linked below, she says, “I’m interested in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture—bleeding them together in a practice that’s inextricable for me.” It’s always interesting to read interviews with artists, rather than read articles written about them. Art criticism is rarely done well (read: boring), and as I look through different articles, it’s clear they often rip each other off trying to come up with something to say that doesn’t venture too far from the norm.
Soooo – with that in mind, I may vote to shut up now and let you look at her work for yourself and read an article where she is interviewed.
Links:
http://www.sarahsze.com/
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/conversations/2012-10-12/sarah-sze-high-museum/
Museum Collections:
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Guggenheim Museum, New York
The New Museum, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, San Diego, CA
Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
Cartier Foundation, Paris, France
21st Century Museum of Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Fogg Museum of Art, Boston, MA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Chicago, IL
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
