Sarah Sze: Improvisation | "Exclusive" | Art21

Episode #162: Filmed in 2010 at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice, France, Sarah Sze discusses the importance of improvisation and spontaneity during her installation process. Originally shown at her New York City gallery, Sze altered "The Uncountables (Encyclopedia)" (2010) for its reinstallation in France by incorporating locally found items. Sze's use of improvisation allows for viewers to trace her decision making process as they explore and investigate the artwork.

Sarah Sze builds her installations and intricate sculptures from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane materials, marks, and processes with surprising significance. Combining domestic detritus and office supplies into fantastical miniatures, she builds her works, fractal-like, on an architectural scale. Whether adapting to a venue or altering the urban fabric, Sze's patchwork compositions mirror the improvisational quality of cities, balancing whimsy with ecological themes of interconnectivity and sustainability.

Learn more about Sarah Sze at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/sarah-sze

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Field Producer: Agnes Jammal. Camera: Miguel Sanchez Martin. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Morgan Riles & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: Sarah Sze & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Special Thanks: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

[So I just pull it?]

[A lot?]

[Can I pull on it a lot?]

Improvisation is crucial.

I want the work to be sort of an experience of something live--

To have this feeling that it was improvised,

That you can see decisions happening on site,

The way you see a live sports event,

The way you hear jazz.

The spontaneous is always where it's the most interesting,

for the artist and for the viewer.

The "Encyclopedia" piece, when it went to France, for example,

We went to local stores,

Actually, I didn't even need to go to local stores--

It was what we were eating,

What was in the hotel,

And I added it into the piece.

You can spend a lot of time conceptualizing and thinking it over

and then it's usually in the actual making and the process

where there is something spontaneous that,

After all that planning,

You had no idea was going to happen,

And when that happens is when it's interesting.

When you experience the piece,

You think about its making,

You think about its demise,

And you feel like when you come to it

It's actually a moment in time.

The work looks like a science experiment,

It looks like you come into someone's studio,

Or someone's lab,

And you're seeing the process as it happens,

And that the outcome is not clear.

So you'll be in a section where you find little things

That almost look like jewelry.

But then when it starts to look too much like jewelry

I'll switch it over to looking like a shoe store.

And if it looks too much like a shoe store

I'll make it look like a morgue.

At the very core of the work, I'm thinking about

The edge between life and art,

And trying to have the viewer

Move in and out of that all the time.

So something that's very familiar

Juxtaposed with something that's very unfamiliar.

When you see it, you know that

There was a kind of tinkering that was discovered,

That that's something we'd been fooling around with

A lot of things to come to that.

The viewer actually, I think, experiences

That kind of discovery that I actually have.