Sarah Sze Interview: The Meaning Between Things

I mean I think if you go through my studio I think things radically change everyday so if you'd been here three weeks ago or even two days ago it would be entirely different so things get I think reworked pretty quickly and pretty radically and things get sometimes left and then we worked on again yeah I usually have working on like several things all at the same time so focus right very you know you know for like three days on one thing and then get it to a point and then move away from it get some distance and work on something else but it's it changes I even forget how radically it changes and people come in and they you know to me that seems like a normal process I think the only reason I realize it changes that much it's from other people coming in and I think it's like that on-site - I would say that's the one thing that people emphasize the most about working with me on site is the radical amount of change that happens every day up until the last minute I see my work as sculpture because I think sculpture is when you deal with objects yeah we start with objects as as the point of reference and my work I think of the relationship between objects and how those that creates meaning so you know when you enter a work of mine I want you to not only deal with the objects deal with the space still have experience be immersed but really what it is is the object is the magnet that creates that experience draws you in and I think in many ways what I'm trying to do is is really disperse that object break it down dislocate you with an object so that when you walk in you focus on one object but immediately you have to move to another you have to move nuts so you have choices and in many ways I think this is about the way you see when you come into this room you see a ladder but it's really it relates to the window it relates to the building it really it's very quick we don't ISIL can't isolate an object so I think you know traditional idea of sculpture is that you have an isolated object so some piece in Venice the title is triple point it's an example of this idea of trying to sit between many things at once and a triple point comes from this term the triple point for example of water it's where a substance exists in three states at once so with water would be ice melting and then having a vapor at the same time so it's in three states at once so I think in some ways and the reason I chose that title is in some ways I'm interested in creating a situation where where you're sitting between many many different directions so my choice of material you know my choice in the channel I think starts with scale you know a lot of the way I want you to approach a sculpture of mine is to think about how it relates to your body how it relates to your hand how it relates to your mouth you know how you imagine it or remember it in relation to a real experience with an object so I start with objects usually that have that relationship to the body I think you know I think of my materials as a pallet that get edited out or brought in depending on things that are relevant to me in you know in any particular sculpture I think you know for example something that might be relevant is the idea that a sculpture is constantly growing and dying at the same time that's being a process of construction but at the same time a process of deconstruction so that when you've come to a sculpture it's teetering at that point and you imagine it's its creation and you imagine its destruction so right at this point if you don't know which direction it's going to go so for example some of the objects will actually plan on that so you'll have materials that talk about construction the materials that will inevitably erode you know and so that could mean you know leaving a ladder and that can mean having a live plant so that you imagine that of ecosystem that is both in development and in demise but the object the choice of the objects I think is a lot about the idea of intimacy and and Latin and lack of familiarity and this again this teetering so I want them to be objects that are familiar to you they look so mundane that they they actually have really no value at all so that they can be you know and value in this way we are determined by easily accessible mass-produced easily replaced you know that let's say that that's because you could define value in many ways but so mostly they often have a very throwaway quality to them because I'm interested in taking something that's so valueless that's so ubiquitous so familiar that it has no meaning anymore and then suddenly putting in a location or in proximity to other things where it seems like it actually has an incredible amount of value by the way it's been treated by the way it's been placed by the way you approach it so I know this idea of creating a kind of strangely intimate experience with a work of art in a very public space that challenge of how do you create an intimacy in a space that is completely public in Venice for example you know I took I really wanted the building to be much more have a you usually walk in it's a complete hierarchy it's a very rigorous hierarchy you walk in the center drawer and on either end you go left you go right and I want to change that I want to make a string of experiences where you were constantly oriented and disoriented in the space so you entered to the left and when you enter to the left the first piece was a very iconic piece and the door shut behind you you're completely sucked into a very central piece because the piece was round it was like a planetarium when you went to the second room the piece divided the the piece is divided in half and your body was actually in this negative space in the room and when you turn then you had this long view and two rooms down there was a pendulum which if you focused on the ED of the you know peripheral I say you could see a kind of movement and there was actually a framed poster of the sky from very far away so you know thinking about how it's a very filmic idea because anyone who's ever done any kind of editing film there's that entirely the meaning comes out of the editing that when it's the juxtaposition it's that space in between the two cut the cut itself that creates meaning so for me that's what I'm thinking a lot it goes back to that your question of an installation sculpture for me the meaning is always happening between the transition between things not the things themselves I think the married William is tough because it has for many reasons but it has an outside court guard so it kind of demands an outdoor piece and I really wanted to play with that idea that when you first came to the building there was a piece that had a significant presence on the outside of the building but you didn't entirely understand it until you had made the full route through the building I know two reasons why you don't understand that one is that each of the works in the space is kind of a mechanism it plays on the idea of traditional mechanisms to try and understand where we are in time and space whether it's a compass pendulum a planetarium this idea of how do we measure time and space and how complicated that idea really is in literal and metaphorical ways so the outside piece is actually a weather vane but you don't really understand that you sort of see it it has it felt feels very chaotic can you understand that it goes up one side of the building and it's sort of it's sort of like a kind of hovel that covers something but you don't really understand it that you know it's very important that everything was off off-center in the building to me because the building is a is you know it's a it's it's it became an American idea that was stolen from Palladio which in palladia was like very you know making him the villa rotunda you know half an hour away from the Giardini and palladia was borrowed by the Americans by Thomas Jefferson the White House is based on it the University of Virginia's based on this very traditional idea of when you walk in it's really a Renaissance idea you walk in and in the most traditional planning building there's literally a compass on the floor and with the villa rotunda which is the classic you see north east south west you are the center of the earth the idea for inside and outside really becomes apparent when you actually go through this string of experiences and come to the last room I really wanted to make that room about this interior space that felt exterior and then when you get there you realize that the outdoor piece is actually sort of shielding an exterior space that then feels interior and you're in that this kind of balance between those two spaces and they they they they sort of they melt the building in a kind of way so the first thing I did was they I actually put mirrors to continue that view which is this very horizontal view of seeing which is actually interesting cuz it's related to the architecture at that time in the 70s you know like in the States Frank Lloyd Wright was very big so it's all about the horizon the landscape and so when you walk into that room you do you actually cert your view circulates out to me it's also very interesting that you when you go to see a show that you actually feel like you're in the studio there's important to me that the pavilion became had the rawness of like a laboratory or studio of something we're still things were going to happen so that room maybe was really interesting because it actually everything in the room was a process that was just stopped but it was an actual process of her system to make work that then became the work itself in that room I think a pieces is finished when it can sit between many things at once and I think you know that's the last stage of a show of a work you know and usually it's a much of it has built to a location and and you can change thing again this is like you know I think in writing and editing and this is when we learn to write everyone knows how to write so I use those metaphors a lot about when people ask about a process in and our you know when you're writing when you've written in and tie it you wouldn't even written an essay or a poem or a novel you change you take the last chapter and then all the way put in the front and everything can change right so you're at a location where I mean I think then work develops to the point where at a location where you see the balance and you decide what that balance is and you don't always get it right but it what it feels like for me when it feels like you walk into a work of art and it and it every time you try and decide what's happening it flips and then it flips and then it flips in the foot

Channel: Louisiana Channel

Views: 43,342

Rating: 4.7719297 out of 5

Keywords: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum, art, Sarah Sze

Id: NabxA5hPnjA

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 31 2014