Coinciding with the explosion of information of the 21st Century, Sze’s work simultaneously models and navigates the ceaseless proliferation of information in contemporary life. Her encyclopaedic installations unfold like a series of experiments that construct intimate systems of order – precarious ecologies in which material conveys meaning and a sense of loss.

Widely recognized for challenging the boundaries of painting, installation and architecture, Sze’s sculptural practice ranges from slight gestures discovered in hidden spaces to expansive installations that scale walls and colonize architectures.

About the artist

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1969, Sarah Sze lives and works in New York. Sze represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. The artist has exhibited in museums worldwide, and her works are held in the permanent collections of prominent institutions, including Tate, UK; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; MUDAM, Luxembourg; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Sze has also created public works for the High Line in New York, the city's Second Avenue Subway Station, and the new LaGuardia Airport.

Sze’s work has been featured in The Whitney Biennial (2000), the Carnegie International (1999) and several international biennials, including Berlin (1998), Guangzhou (2015), Liverpool (2008), Lyon (2009), São Paulo (2002), and Venice (1999, 2013, and 2015). 

Sze’s recent solo presentations include Sarah Sze: Timelapse at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (31 March–10 September 2023); and Sarah Sze: The Waiting Room at Peckham Rye Station in London (19 May–17 September 2023).

In summer 2021 Sarah Sze: Fallen Sky, a permanent, site-specific sculpture and exhibition featuring the panoramic work Fifth Season, opened at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY. Other current and recent institutional exhibitions include On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale, a group exhibition (10 September 2021–9 January 2022) at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. 

Sze’s installation Seamless, 1999, on view at Tate Modern’s Collections Displays until October 2022; Triple Point (Pendulum), first exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale, where Sze represented the United States in 2013, currently on view as part of the MoMA's redisplay of its permanent collection.