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Installation Artist Picked for Venice 2013

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: February 23, 2012

Sarah Sze, the installation artist known for creating site-specific environments out of everyday objects like toothpicks, sponges, light bulbs and plastic bottles, has been chosen to represent the United States at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Ms. Sze (pronounced ZEE), 43, was selected by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which promotes cultural exchanges worldwide. Holly Block, director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Carey Lovelace, a critic and independent curator, proposed Ms. Sze for the Biennale, and those two women will organize the exhibition together, with the Bronx Museum acting as the commissioning institution.

Ms. Sze’s work has been visible in New York for a while. A show of her works on paper is at the Asia Society through March 25. And those strolling the High Line can see her modern avian habitat — fake-wood-covered birdhouses with parallelogram sides built into grids of shiny metal rods that converge to single points.

“Her work is so sensitive to its surroundings I will be fascinated to see how she transforms the American pavilion without physically changing the architecture,” said Ms. Lovelace, who explained that she and Ms. Block have watched Ms. Sze’s work evolve for years.

Ms. Sze said she would create a sequence of environments inside the pavilion, a 1930s Palladian-style structure designed by Delano & Aldrich, and in the courtyard in front of it. The installation, called “Triple Point,” will be about “orientation and disorientation,” Ms. Sze said in a telephone interview.

“I plan to create a new commission in the courtyard that brings the inside out,” she added. “Wandering around Venice without a map, you find the most incredible things. And I’m hoping to create an immersive environment that deals with that abstract experience of discovery.”

Ms. Sze’s work has been shown at the Venice Biennale before. She showed in an exhibition there in 1998. This time around, she said, she will probably spend about two months in Venice, creating her installation with help from Italian university students. “My work is always a mix of stuff collected over time and all over the place,” she explained. Venice is an especially rich hunting ground, she said, adding that she expects to use local materials and local craftspeople.

Ms. Lovelace and Ms. Block said that the project would be documented as it unfolded, with live streaming on a Web site that would be accessible through the Bronx Museum.

Source:"The New York times.","February 23, 2012","www.http://www.nytimes.com."