Sarah Sze’s “Random Walk Drawings” are universes unto themselves at Asia Society (photo courtesy Asia Society)
EXPLORING THE CREATIVE PROCESS — A CONVERSATION
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Wednesday, March 14, $20, 6:30
Exhibition continues through March 25
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org
For more than fifteen years, New York-based visual artist Sarah Sze has been creating fragile, mysterious environments that are their own little worlds. Using found objects and everyday materials, Sze employs her architectural background to build fascinating structures that combine a Rube Goldberg playfulness with what she calls an “anti-monumental” aesthetic, inspired by Japanese gardens and butoh dance. Her show at Asia Society, “Infinite Line,” delves into her creative process through drawing, sculpture, and installation, spread across two galleries. In the smaller room, such drawings and collages as “Guggenheim as a Ruin,” “Funny Feeling,” “Night,” and “Day” are like architectural plans for fantastical cities while recalling traditional Japanese scroll painting. Visitors have to be careful where they walk in the larger gallery — a security guard will make sure you don’t get too close — which is filled with delicate, expansive pieces made of string, stones, laser-engraved paper, Styrofoam cups, a blinking digital clock, bottle caps, colored tape, and other items that examine the intersection of drawing and sculpture through physical space and perspective. The eight “Random Walk Drawings,” which contain such subtitles as “Compass,” “Window,” “Air,” “Water,” and “Eye Chart,” dangle from the ceiling, spread across the floor, emerge from the wall, and even make their way onto the outside balcony overlooking Park Ave. The Boston-born Sze, who has also treated New Yorkers to such outdoor works as “The Triple Point of Water” in the Whitney’s Sculpture Court in 2003, “Corner Plot” at the Scholars’ Gate entrance to Central Park in 2006, and the current “Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat)” bird feeder on the High Line, will be at Asia Society on March 14 for a discussion with her husband, Indian-born author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, moderated by Asia Society president Vishakha N. Desai. The galleries will remain open until 9:00 that night to allow ticket holders to see the show. If you can’t make it to the event, you can watch the live webcast here.