Sarah Sze facts for kids

Sarah Sze (born 1969) is an American artist. She is also a professor of visual arts at Columbia University. Sarah Sze's art explores how technology, information, and memories connect with everyday objects. She uses common materials to create her sculptures. Her artworks often show objects that look like they are floating or frozen in time. Sze's art makes us think about how ordinary things can become special art pieces. Her work has been shown all over the world. Many big museums have her art in their collections.

Early Life and Education

Sarah Sze was born in Boston in 1969. Her father, Chia-Ming Sze, was an architect. Her mother, Judy Mossman, was a schoolteacher. Sarah loved to draw all the time when she was a child. She went to Milton Academy for school. Later, she studied Architecture and Painting at Yale University. She graduated in 1991 with top honors.

Artistic Career Highlights

Sarah Sze's art has been shown in many important art events. These include the Whitney Biennial in 2000. She also showed her work at the Carnegie International in 1999. Her art has been part of international shows like the Berlin Biennale and the Venice Biennale. She represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

Sze has also created art for public spaces. You can see her works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also has art at the Walker Art Center. In New York, she created a piece for the High Line, which is a park built on old railway tracks.

Sarah Sze has received special awards for her art. In 2003, she became a MacArthur Fellow. This award is sometimes called a "genius grant." She also won the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Competition Award in 1999.

Notable Artworks and Installations

In 2013, Sarah Sze represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. Her exhibition there was called Triple Point.

On January 1, 2017, a special art piece by Sze opened in New York City. It is a permanent installation of drawings on ceramic tiles. You can find it in the 96th Street subway station. This station is part of the new Second Avenue Subway line.

In 2020, Sze revealed Shorter than the Day. This is a permanent artwork at LaGuardia Airport.

Her most recent permanent artwork, Fallen Sky, opened in 2021. It is located at Storm King Art Center in New York.

In 2023, Sze had an exhibition called Timelapse at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. For this show, she created art pieces especially for the famous building.

Also in 2023, Sze changed a large waiting room in Peckham Rye railway station in London. She turned it into an amazing art experience called The Waiting Room. An art critic named Tabish Khan said the installation filled him with "a sense of awe."

Personal Life

Sarah Sze lives in New York City. Her husband is Siddhartha Mukherjee. They have two daughters together. Sarah Sze's great-grandfather, Alfred Sao-ke Sze, was an important person. He was the first Chinese student to go to Cornell University. He later became China’s minister to Britain and ambassador to the United States. Her grandfather, Szeming Sze, helped start the World Health Organization.

How Sarah Sze Creates Her Art

Sarah Sze uses ideas from modern art, especially using "found objects." She builds very large art pieces called installations. She uses everyday items like string, Q-tips, photos, and wire. She puts them together to make complex designs that look like star patterns. This makes her art look both messy and very precise. All the objects, no matter how small, are connected to each other. This helps her art tell a bigger story.

By changing and reshaping these everyday items, Sze also changes how valuable they seem. She challenges the idea that sculptures must be solid or made of certain materials. She even includes things like ladders or wooden poles in her finished art. These are usually "unseen" tools used to make art.

Sze has always pushed the limits of what sculpture can be. She often makes her art seem to move. She plans carefully to make still objects look alive. With her background in painting and architecture, she explores what a sculpture can do. She wants to challenge the idea of sculpture as a solid, fixed shape.

Sze also thinks about how people will experience her art. When she chooses materials, she considers what value an object has. She wants to "choreograph the experience." This means she plans how people will walk through her art. She wants them to slow down, stop, and really see what she has created.

The Meaning Behind Her Art

Sarah Sze's art helps us understand how we see our daily lives and the world around us. She often uses objects to record memories. In her work Timekeeper, Sze creates a kind of time capsule. This connects the objects she uses to a specific year. When she rebuilds old works, she can add new materials. This creates a new time capsule.

Time itself is a big theme in Sze's art. Her works often spread out in many directions. This suggests that there is much we don't know. Time and memory also show up when images change over time. Sze sometimes uses ideas from her older works in new projects. This shows how objects and memories can change over time.

Sze's choice of materials is very important. Using mass-produced objects often hints at home life. It can also show feelings of having too much stuff or of things growing. When she collects, layers, or stacks these daily objects, it can make a space feel full or crowded.

Sarah Sze also thinks about the space where her art is placed. She considers the space her art creates. Some of her round artworks let people walk inside them. This makes the experience very immersive. She plans how visitors will move through the art and how the gallery space will shape her work. She thinks about whether the building itself tells a story or just guides the audience. The spaces Sze creates in her art connect with her choice of objects.

Her hanging installations often look fragile. But they are carefully put together. Every object is precisely aligned. This shows there is a very planned method behind their delicate look.

When her art is in nature, Sze thinks about the environment. For her permanent artwork Fallen Sky at Storm King Art Center, she made it look like something from space is joining with the ground. Other outdoor pieces, like Still Life with Landscape, include the natural surroundings. This creates a smooth connection between the art and its location.

Exhibitions and Shows

Sarah Sze has had many solo exhibitions. These shows have been across the United States and in other countries. Some of her important solo shows include:

• White Room (1997) at White Columns in New York City.
• Sarah Sze (1999) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
• Sarah Sze: The Triple Point of Water (2003-2004) at the Whitney Museum in New York.
• Triple Point (2013) at the American pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale.
• Sarah Sze: Timelapse (2023) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

She has also been part of many group exhibitions. These include the Berlin Biennale (1998). She was also in the 48th and 56th Venice Biennale (1999, 2015). Her work was shown at the Whitney Biennial (2000) and the Liverpool Biennial (2008).

Notable Works in Public Collections

Awards and Honors

• 2022 - Asia Arts Game Change Award
• 2020 - Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2018 – The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
• 2013 – US Representative for the Venice Biennale