Sarah Sze

‘The convergence of the two planes – their vanishing point – is not a fixed horizon but instead is another threshold: a window onto a body of water, a canal in Venice, itself a place of vanishing and discovery.’ — Erin Manns

Two planar arrangements fill the space and appear to intersect; planes entirely comprised of, and at the same time fragmented by, a collection of moving images displayed on hand-torn paper screens. These images are like portals through which we glimpse moments of existence, from the humble to the sublime, the local to the universal. The convergence of the two planes – their vanishing point – is not a fixed horizon but instead is another threshold: a window onto a body of water, a canal in Venice, itself a place of vanishing and discovery.

The constellation of moving images bears an organic temporality in the sense that each image grows and deteriorates within its own fleeting lifespan. As with a poetic or choral refrain, at times the entire composition comes together in instants of total cohesion – a deep intake of breath, a catharsis of sorts. This cohesion, too, falls apart to enable each of the screens to come to life once again, in yet another form.

The projections invite the viewer to navigate the work visually, forming a personal narrative by travelling from one moving image to the next. This wayfinding is fluid and emancipatory, as though the visual journey is itself the destination.

‘As the domestic rooms of a Venetian apartment reveal themselves to be an artist’s place of work, the act of making is aligned with the act of looking.’

In the salon rooms of an apartment opposite the gallery, Sze creates a total environment with a series of paintings presented within a simulation of the space in which they were made. As the domestic rooms of a Venetian apartment reveal themselves to be an artist’s place of work, the act of making is aligned with the act of looking. Paintings on view (and some whose presence is understood in absentia) are displayed within a simulacrum of Sze’s New York studio, the earliest context in which the paintings exist.

Frisson occurs, as Sze remarks, ‘when the viewer recognizes they are bridging a gap in time between the studio and the exhibition’. This mise-en-scène, an environmental artwork titled The Lost Paintings, is an archive of the paintings at the point of creation as well as a framing device for the works on view, and accurately reflects the specific gestures that engendered the paintings’ existence. The Lost Paintings is in itself an image: an image, reproduced as a wall covering, of Sze’s formative painterly marks made in the studio – a moment captured in time, a conversation between the artist and the work. The Lost Paintings also holds paintings and offers the paintings as portals that open to other possibilities for discovery.

‘With this series of paintings, Sze’s enquiry is one of orientation: how does one locate oneself in a painting, and how can a painting’s effect be one of disorientation?’

With this series of paintings, Sze’s enquiry is one of orientation: how does one locate oneself in a painting, and how can a painting’s effect be one of disorientation? Compositionally complex, the works incorporate both art historical approaches and digital techniques. Considerations of perspective are crucial as Sze frequently employs devices that use two-dimensional space to create three, combining both Eastern isometric and Western single-point methodologies. Landscape, or the symbolic representation of landscape, is prevalent in these new works.

‘Sze is interested in the idea that elements in painting can be used to locate oneself and that these elements can subversively be made to thwart this drive to locate: as exemplified in Shimmer and Unravel, they weave, become lost and re-emerge, shift between near and far distance, and become intertwined.’

The theoretical investigations of early Modern painterly movements such as Pointillism and Impressionism were grounded in aspects of human perception, in that the mind is always working to assemble images, whether points of colour, points of light or fragments of form – a foundational understanding that, as with all of Sze’s oeuvre, the whole is ultimately greater than the sum of its individual parts. Sze is interested in the idea that elements in painting can be used to locate oneself and that these elements can subversively be made to thwart this drive to locate: as exemplified in Shimmer and Unravel (both 2024), they weave, become lost and re-emerge, shift between near and far distance, and become intertwined.’

‘Drawing on the tradition of spatial depth in Chinese painting, in which flat planes are used to establish a sense of foreground and background, Sze refreshes and updates this approach with an interest in landscape, not for what it depicts, but how it behaves: its entropy, decay, growth and evolution.’

‘At all times, we are made profoundly aware that these are paintings, yet the strategy of disorientation empowers the viewer to piece them together and take them apart. Sze’s paintings are something one looks throughout rather than looks at. As with Sze’s video work, her paintings embody a certain fragility, always slipping into and out of full view.’

‘Sze consistently rewards the act of looking; in her work, entire worlds unfold, one portal to the next, time and again’

A sense of discovery has informed all of Sze’s oeuvre, and the experience of Venice as a place, its unique invitation to wander, is echoed within the exhibition. All of her newest works incorporate imagery – even if layered and hidden – that the artist has captured or created in the city. Sze consistently rewards the act of looking; in her work, entire worlds unfold, one portal to the next, time and again.

For the past thirty years, Sarah Sze has developed a singular visual language that challenges the static nature of art with a dynamic body of work spanning sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video, and installation.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1969, Sze lives and works in New York. Sze represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. The artist has exhibited in museums worldwide, and her works are held in the permanent collections of prominent institutions, including Tate, UK; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; MUDAM, Luxembourg; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Sze has also created public works for the High Line in New York, the city’s Second Avenue Subway Station, and the new LaGuardia Airport.

Current and recent solo exhibitions include: Sarah Sze: Timelapse, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2023) and a solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas (until 18 August 2024).

Sarah Sze: Metronome, a new work co-commissioned and co-produced by Artangel, UK, OGR Torino, Italy, and Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark, opens at ARoS on 18 May and continues until 20 October 2024.

Acknowledgements
Alejo Contreras, Jack Colton, Jake Charkey, Joell Baxter, Kirsten Nicholas, Lucy Lord Campana, Mike Barnett, Patrick O’Connor, Ruby Guralnik Dawes, Satoru Eguchi, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Susan Hertzberg and everyone at Victoria Miro.