Sarah Sze’s alchemic wonders shake the Eternal City

If medieval alchemy had a modern face it would be that of American artist Sarah Sze. She picks everyday materials – archival paper, adhesive, tape, ink, acrylic polymers and steel – as the building blocks of her multimedia works, combining them into sublime concoctions. Bringing together sculpture, painting, photography and video, she blurs artistic boundaries to tease perception and stir emotion.
Sze’s exhibition at the Gagosian Rome gallery, her first in the Eternal City, is a sensorial journey across space and time. The centrepiece, a video sculpture titled Flash Point, projects flickering images of animals, people and abstract symbols across the walls, transforming the oval room into a ‘magic lantern’. It’s a play on what is perceived and what remains locked in one’s mind, calling to mind Plato’s cave or T.S. Eliot’s invisible line between ‘conception’ and ‘creation’. The work inundates the senses and leaves the viewer’s head spinning with one overwhelming, existential question: what is real, and what isn’t?
First Time, oil paint, acrylic paint, archival paper, adhesive, tape, ink, acrylic polymers, shellac, water-based primer and wood, from the Half-Life series, 2018, by Sarah Sze. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian
‘I’ve always been interested in the ways in which we experience images as ephemeral objects, like passing thoughts, sometimes interconnected, sometimes disjointed; there is nothing linear about it,’ Sze says. The viewer is no ordinary spectator, but is instead the protagonist of a happening. In the Half-Life painting series, viewers find themselves following a long trail of white paint across the floor, chasing a beam of light, oblivious to where it will lead. ‘I want the work to have the residue of improvisation,’ the artist remarks, ‘there is always room for the unexpected to sneak in and rearrange the space altogether: it’s when the unexpected enters that we feel most alert, most moved, and most alive.’
The metamorphosis of natural elements pervades Sze’s hybridised art. Split Stone, a new work set to join the show in November, is a natural boulder split in two like a geode. Each of the cuts reveals a resin sunset set against a dot-screen coloured sky, as if a slice of the Earth’s inner core had been exposed. The jagged surface of the granite clashes with the shiny sliver of sky. ‘By recording images in pixels and then fixing them in stone and ink, I want to explore the fragility of time and our desire for weight and permanence in the face of both overwhelming natural forces and the ubiquitous images that surround us daily’.
A rendering of a new work, set to join the show in November, shows a huge geode split in two to reveal a resin sunset
Ghost Print, 2018, by Sarah Sze, oil paint, acrylic paint, archival paper, adhesive, tape, ink, acrylic polymers, shellac, water-based primer and wood, from the series Half-Life. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian
INFORMATION
‘Sarah Sze’ is on view until 12 January 2019. For more information, visit the Gagosian website and Sarah Sze’s website
ADDRESS
Gagosian
Via Francesco Crispi 16
00187 Rome
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
The ultimate high-performance earbuds, courtesy of McLaren and Bowers & Wilkins
The new Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 McLaren Edition continues a decade’s worth of cross-pollination between these two tech-focused British manufacturers
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
This Kvadrat tote bag brings together two design luminaries, Raf Simons and Peter Saville
The Kvadrat/Raf Simons tote arrives in Peter Saville’s ‘Technicolour Fleck’ material, and is a symbolic gesture of the pair’s enduring personal relationship and long-running collaboration with the Danish textile house
By Jack Moss Published
-
Where next for Salone del Mobile? Maria Porro on the future of the world’s biggest furniture fair
Ahead of Salone del Mobile 2025 in Milan, we sit down with its president to talk design, data and forging the event’s future in a fast-changing world
By Hugo Macdonald Published
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella Valley
Will Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
By Will Jennings Last updated
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any other
Gia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
By Billie Walker Published
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truths
At the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
By Daisy Woodward Published
-
Tasneem Sarkez's heady mix of kitsch, Arabic and Americana hits London
Artist Tasneem Sarkez draws on an eclectic range of references for her debut solo show, 'White-Knuckle' at Rose Easton
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Alice Neel’s portraits celebrating the queer world are exhibited in London
‘At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World’, curated by Hilton Als, opens at Victoria Miro, London
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘You have to face death to feel alive’: Dark fairytales come to life in London exhibition
Daniel Malarkey, the curator of ‘Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley’ at London’s Alison Jacques gallery, celebrates the fantastical
By Phin Jennings Published
-
Sundance Film Festival 2025: The films we can't wait to watch
Sundance Film Festival, which runs 23 January - 2 February, has long been considered a hub of cinematic innovation. These are the ones to watch from this year’s premieres
By Stefania Sarrubba Published
-
What is RedNote? Inside the social media app drawing American users ahead of the US TikTok ban
Downloads of the Chinese-owned platform have spiked as US users look for an alternative to TikTok, which faces a ban on national security grounds. What is Rednote, and what are the implications of its ascent?
By Anna Solomon Published