Sarah Sze is a young talent that came out of the late 1990s, and is now nationally and internationally recognized.
We can see one of her installations in Seattle, permanently installed, a white chandelier at an entrance to the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle Center. The piece has her signature material base of electric cords, rulers, and many industrial products creating grids and swirls of lines, freely expanding into the air.
This book is an impressive and ideal catalogue for a young artist to verify her credibility and proof to be an established artist. Arthur Danto, who is known for his writings in the Nation and his publications in art history, writes an introduction, referencing her with art historical figures like Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The essay by Linda Norden is eloquent in her educated language with references to French literature, and her analytical precision has an persuasive authority. Sze surely deserves this publication fitting for an artist who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. But after reading the essays, my right brain wants to jump out of this higher world of sophistication and simply immerse myself in the colorful expansion of her pieces. About 200 pages of full color reproductions of many sculptures and installations are in chronological progression, shot from many angles including partial enlargements. They are visually informative and give us a rare chance to see them all together, and are poetic as Danto states. The approaches of cerebral interpretations in this book are sincere, but at the same time, I enjoy the works with my own eyes. Her pieces are fun, an admixture of funk and elegance that makes me want to dance.