Sarah Sze

Cotton buds, pencils, straws, cups and cleaning sponges, pills, chewing gum, batteries and tea bags – everyday objects are Sarah Sze’s working material. From these mass-produced disposable or throwaway products, the young artist builds fragile and expansive structures, which in their multiplicity and scale irritate and fascinate the viewer at the same time. Through the targeted use of light and shadow, the contrast between monumentality and miniature is further intensified and dramatised. The ephemeral and site-specific works reflect in a kind of microcosm everything that determines fast consumerist life. Despite a superficially suggestive playfulness, a slight unease develops towards the wunderkammer-like agglomeration of everyday materials. The confusion of the overall structure reflects the complexity of urban existence at the end of this millennium.