Review: Sarah Sze at the Nasher Sculpture Center

I encountered Sarah Sze for the first time last year through a computer screen. The images of her solo exhibition, Timelapse, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim, transfixed my gaze. Sze’s fresh installations utilize everyday items like plants, studio objects, string, and more to build visual environments that respond to the surrounding architecture. Each installation has an enigmatic nature, encouraging its audience to discover the work through prolonged observation. I still am captivated by the images of Sze’s carefully placed installations and unexpected but serendipitous projections that danced across the museum’s iconic spiraling rotunda. 

The second time I encountered and met Sze was earlier this year at the opening of her solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas. I met her in the bathroom, of all places, and she complimented my silver spiral earrings. Sze is a gripping individual and a celebrity in the art world, so I was quite starstruck by our interaction. Immediately following our charming meet-cute, I entered Nasher Hall for Sze’s artist talk with the museum’s Chief Curator, Jed Morse. 

The auditorium seats two hundred, but guests lined the walls pouring out of the room and into the hallways. Sze spoke at the Nasher in 2016 in a lecture series with the University of North Texas. After feverishly taking notes at the talk and studying the previous lecture, I realized the admirable consistency of Sze’s philosophy and methodology surrounding her studio practice. Crucial to Sze’s method is her attention to space, time, and audience. For the Nasher, Sze created three works that respond to the institution’s architecture, spatial surroundings, and visitor attendance.

Cave Painting reveals physical and metaphorical layers through its materials and imagery. Hand-torn papers strung delicately from the ceiling attached by green tape and alligator clips reveal images of ocean horizons, recurring avian friends, and hands playing with clear slime. Upon Sze’s request, Morse sent an image of the museum’s lustrous garden hidden amongst silvery skyscrapers; the curator did not know at the time that those simple iPhone photos of the garden would make their way into Cave Painting. 

Metaphorically, Cave Painting shows its audience the layers of space that it situates itself within; first, you encounter Flora Street and its surrounding buildings, you enter the grand architecture of the Nasher institution, then you see Cave Painting, and finally, the garden. Through Cave Painting, Sze shows us the journey from the oasis to the garden. She brings the horse to water and lets our eyes drink in the view.

Physically, Cave Painting is grounded by the materials that aid in its creation. Paintbrushes, tape dispensers, wood clamps, string, metal washers, and paint palettes are below the torn papers and ground the work to the white oak floor. They reflect the process of creating Cave Painting, while small black stones mirror the natural environment; a strewn box of matches considers the ephemeral quality of Sze’s work and its death when it inevitably leaves the Nasher.

Upon descending the staircase to the lower level of the Nasher, visitors happen upon Love Song, an installation with a complex infrastructure. Swirling projectors affixed to a tripod cast oval-formed scenes and images onto the walls that waltz with delightful movement. Stemming out from the turntable of projectors are tree-like limbs with hand-torn paper leaves, instilling the installation with an arborescence. Below the branches are remnants of paint splatter that mimic leaves and reflect the seasons; the sculpture is in the moments of growth and decay, life and death.

Love Song is an image generator churning out a multitude of scenic imagery from frost-kissed, blue, rocky mountains to green fields and orange skies. As a visitor, you become part of the work and as the projector passes your physical perimeter it casts your shadowed form onto the wall. It is only for a mere moment, though, as the projector continues its lassoing journey to imprint other figures, leaves, and branches onto its surrounding barrier. The room encapsulating Love Song is made up of three travertine stone walls and a fourth wall of windows, making the exterior of the room appear as a terrarium. As visitors enter the space they further activate the work imbuing it with their valuable presence.

The largest of Sze’s three installations at the Nasher is Slow Dance, a sculptural diptych featuring a series of precariously hung strings floating over seven hundred pieces of hand-torn paper. Each string strung from the sixteen-foot ceiling kisses the ground similarly to Cave Painting in that it is held still by common items and objects from Sze’s studio. The harp-like sculptural forms mirror one another and act as a physical conduit upon which meticulously mapped projections shine.

During a visit to the Nasher, I studied Slow Dance, attempting to learn its behaviors, document its movements, and record every detail I could. Each individual paper is accounted for and displays an array of images. It would take hours if not days of looking to account for the thousands of images Sze visually compiles into the sculpture. The overall visual sequence of Slow Dance is around fourteen minutes long and includes various audio samples like the fluttering noise of cards shuffling, the calming drone of a mother’s hum, and a faint ghost-like voice swiftly muttering numbers from one to seven hundred and twenty-five.

The sequence begins with numbers and progresses to flames emitting a crackling sound. A hand comes into frame, playing with an elastic red hair tie. Fast forward, and you’re watching the entire animal kingdom in greyscale, seeing a sunset peer through a moving car, and noticing a familiar hand, but this time drawing henna. Again comes a flurry of numbers, moonlit water, people sleeping, a red pen drawing lines, sand falling, and then more numbers. Next, the hand caressing translucent slime, a satellite view of a hurricane, roads, and more roads, a pot of red pigment, the final round of numbers, seagulls, fingers playing all sorts of instruments, dominoes falling, a static screen, fire, fire, fire, and imploding infrastructures. To poetically end it all, a wick burns at both ends until it the gallery is returned to complete darkness, and the cycle begins again. 

 

Sarah Sze is curated by Jed Morse and is on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center until August 18, 2024.