Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze
Torn Sky, 2023
Cast stainless steel, archival print, plywood and pine base
Cube dimensions: 6” x 5 ½” x 6 ¼”
Base dimensions: 11 ¼” x 10 5/16” x 2 ¾”
Print dimensions: 11” x 7 ½”
Approximate overall dimensions with print: 14” x 11 ½” x 9 ¼”
Edition of 14, signature stamped and numbered
Published by Lisa Ivorian-Jones
Torn Sky, 2023 by Sarah Sze is a new limited-edition sculpture produced by Lisa Ivorian-Jones. Sold to support exhibition programming at the New Museum, the edition has been published in a limited and unique series of 14.
Torn Sky is comprised of a stainless-steel cast cube sculpture (two carved halves of a whole) and an archival print, which sit atop a wooden pedestal. In order to create the cube, the artist shaped a standard block of clay by hand, subsequently 3D scanning, printing, and casting it. The resultant crater-like forms appear to have been subject to the deleterious effects of erosion and the natural passing of time; shards and fragments from the carved-out interior lie upon a wooden base, reminiscent of fallen petals. The high polish of the interior forms and fragments stand in crisp contrast to their beautifully hand painted matte grey exterior. Each of these eroded cubes, in a series of 14, sits atop a unique archival print which depict images taken by the artist of the New York City sky at different times of day and night.
Most beautifully encompassing all critical aspects of this MacArthur Award winning artist’s varied and multi-faceted practice, Torn Sky refers to the active process of studio creation, and the inherent passage of time. Thwarting the viewer’s expectations through her brilliant and nuanced play of both scale and material, Sze allows time to collapse, as the sculpture’s journey from humble clay to impermeable steel is evoked. A telescoping of micro and macro, Torn Sky reorients us by opening a new way of looking at both the earth and the sky (the heavens), not only materially, but also in ways both phenomenological and metaphysical.
Born in Boston in 1969, Sze presently lives and works in New York. She received a BA from Yale University in Connecticut in 1991 and an MFA from New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1997. She is a 2003 MacArthur Fellow.
In 2013, Sze represented the United States at the 55th Venice Biennale with a solo pavilion presentation entitled Triple Point. Other important solo exhibitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2023); Storm King Art Center, New York (2021); Fondation Cartier Pour L'art Contemporain, Paris (2021); MOCA Toronto (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2017-2018); Rose Art Museum at Bradis University (2016); Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2014), Asia Society in New York (2011-12), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle, UK (2009), Malmo Konsthall in Sweden (2006), Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2003), Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (2002), Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2002), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (1999), Foundation Cartier in Paris (1999), and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (1998). She has conceived major public commissions at New York City’s High Line Park (2011-12), the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in New York City, organized by the Public Art Fund (2006), Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge (2004); New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 2nd Avenue subway line, 96th street station, New York (2017); La Guardia Airport (2020); Storm King Art Center, New York.
Her work is well represented in important private and public collections worldwide, including those of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art, The New Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art, along with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 21st Century Museum of Art in Kanazawa, Japan, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, Tate Collection, London, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Fondation Louis Vuitton, France, among others.