Since 1997, Sarah Sze’s sprawling arrangements of throwaway materials have been appearing at major museums and galleries all over the world, including the American Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. But if you’re not familiar with her work, this is the show to see. Made up of 37 assemblages, it looks like a renovation in progress one minute and an artificial garden the next.
As is usual for this artist, Sze created most of the work in situ. Sculptures from her “Fragment” series occupy the downstairs gallery, with Long White Paint Fragment (made by pouring white paint on a plastic sheet then peeling it off and hanging it from the ceiling) being among the standouts.
Upstairs, the pièce de résistance is Measuring Stick, which mixes a collection of mirrors, fruit, rocks, water and grass with videos of exploding objects and of the Voyager spacecraft to evoke the universe in miniature. Contrasting the geometric with the organic, the industrial with the natural, and the domestic with the wild, Sze takes her work and the viewer to new heights.—Paul Laster