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mit industrial park
March 14
OPEN TO MIT COMMUNITY--Meet the Artist: Sarah Sze, creator of "Blue Poles." Sze will talk about the work she designed for MIT's new public artwork, situated at the Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence as part of MIT's Percent-for-Art Program. "Blue Poles" is composed of a series of modular ladder-like structures, that joined together and are installed both inside and outside the 6-story building facade starting at the entrance canopy Refreshments. 6-8pm, Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence (70 Pacific St.) 617/253-4400 (3/8/06)
Sze, a MacArthur Fellow, creates works that are often site-specific sculptures that utilize pre-fabricated materials to construct fantastic and provocative responses to functional spaces. Sze's works usually do not stand alone, but effectively infiltrate the space they inhabit.
During her residency at the former studio of American sculptor Alexander Calder (creator of the "Great Sail" in McDermott Court at MIT), Sze developed the idea of using a modular, ladder-form unit. In her essay for a brochure on "Blue Poles," art critic Eleanor Heartney writes:
Sze, who grew up in Boston, notes that this work was inspired in part by the fire escapes that she observed stretching across the fronts and backs of tenement apartment buildings. Providing both a means for escape in case of disaster and a place to hang out that is simultaneously inside and outside, fire escapes add a human dimension to the urban landscape. Newer, more modern buildings, like those on the MIT campus, eschew this old-fashioned safety system for more invisible means of escape. Thus, by fusing this jumble of ladders onto a sleek glass facade, Sze joins two apparently antithetical architectural styles. In the process, she offers a subtle critique of the dehumanizing quality of much contemporary architecture and design.
The title refers to a well-known painting "Blue Poles" (1952) by the American abstract-expressionist artist Jackson Pollock. Sze writes, "I decided to name the piece out of my love of the Pollock painting to emphasize the intuitive gestural side of the work, and its relationship to color and form."
MIT's Percent-for-Art Program allots funds to commission or purchase art for each new major renovation or building project. The program was formally instituted in 1968, but earlier collaborations between artists and architects can be found on the Institute's campus. In 1985 architect I.M. Pei and artists Scott Burton, Kenneth Noland, and Richard Fleischner collaborated on Percent-for-Art Program for the Wiesner Building and plaza, home to the LVAC and the Media Laboratory. Other Percent-for-Art projects have been commissioned or purchased from such artists as Mark di Suvero, Jackie Ferrara, Dan Graham, Candida Hofer, Louise Nevelson, Jorge Pardo, and Matthew Ritchie.
A free educational brochure with an essay by Eleanor Heartney is available. Heartney is a Contributing Editor to Art in America and Artpress, and received the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism in 1992. Since 2003, she has been Co-President of AICA-USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association.
About the Artist:
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1969, Sarah Sze holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Sarah Sze's solo exhibitions include those at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2005 and 2000); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2003); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999); Institute of Contemporary Art, London and the musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998); and White Columns, White Room, New York (1997). In 2005, Sze created "An Equal and Opposite Reaction" as a permanent installation for the Seattle Opera in Seattle, Washington. She also has participated in group exhibitions all over the United States and at such international venues as the Bienal de S“o Paulo, Brazil; the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; the Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Sarah Sze has received numerous awards and honors including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lotos Club Foundation Prize in the Arts (2003); as well as awards from Atelier Calder, Sache, France, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1999); and The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and Paula Rhodes Memorial Award (1997).
mit industrial park
March 14
OPEN TO MIT COMMUNITY--Meet the Artist: Sarah Sze, creator of "Blue Poles." Sze will talk about the work she designed for MIT's new public artwork, situated at the Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence as part of MIT's Percent-for-Art Program. "Blue Poles" is composed of a series of modular ladder-like structures, that joined together and are installed both inside and outside the 6-story building facade starting at the entrance canopy Refreshments. 6-8pm, Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence (70 Pacific St.) 617/253-4400 (3/8/06)
Sze, a MacArthur Fellow, creates works that are often site-specific sculptures that utilize pre-fabricated materials to construct fantastic and provocative responses to functional spaces. Sze's works usually do not stand alone, but effectively infiltrate the space they inhabit.
During her residency at the former studio of American sculptor Alexander Calder (creator of the "Great Sail" in McDermott Court at MIT), Sze developed the idea of using a modular, ladder-form unit. In her essay for a brochure on "Blue Poles," art critic Eleanor Heartney writes:
Sze, who grew up in Boston, notes that this work was inspired in part by the fire escapes that she observed stretching across the fronts and backs of tenement apartment buildings. Providing both a means for escape in case of disaster and a place to hang out that is simultaneously inside and outside, fire escapes add a human dimension to the urban landscape. Newer, more modern buildings, like those on the MIT campus, eschew this old-fashioned safety system for more invisible means of escape. Thus, by fusing this jumble of ladders onto a sleek glass facade, Sze joins two apparently antithetical architectural styles. In the process, she offers a subtle critique of the dehumanizing quality of much contemporary architecture and design.
The title refers to a well-known painting "Blue Poles" (1952) by the American abstract-expressionist artist Jackson Pollock. Sze writes, "I decided to name the piece out of my love of the Pollock painting to emphasize the intuitive gestural side of the work, and its relationship to color and form."
MIT's Percent-for-Art Program allots funds to commission or purchase art for each new major renovation or building project. The program was formally instituted in 1968, but earlier collaborations between artists and architects can be found on the Institute's campus. In 1985 architect I.M. Pei and artists Scott Burton, Kenneth Noland, and Richard Fleischner collaborated on Percent-for-Art Program for the Wiesner Building and plaza, home to the LVAC and the Media Laboratory. Other Percent-for-Art projects have been commissioned or purchased from such artists as Mark di Suvero, Jackie Ferrara, Dan Graham, Candida Hofer, Louise Nevelson, Jorge Pardo, and Matthew Ritchie.
A free educational brochure with an essay by Eleanor Heartney is available. Heartney is a Contributing Editor to Art in America and Artpress, and received the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award for distinction in art criticism in 1992. Since 2003, she has been Co-President of AICA-USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association.
About the Artist:
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1969, Sarah Sze holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Sarah Sze's solo exhibitions include those at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2005 and 2000); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2003); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999); Institute of Contemporary Art, London and the musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998); and White Columns, White Room, New York (1997). In 2005, Sze created "An Equal and Opposite Reaction" as a permanent installation for the Seattle Opera in Seattle, Washington. She also has participated in group exhibitions all over the United States and at such international venues as the Bienal de S“o Paulo, Brazil; the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; the Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Sarah Sze has received numerous awards and honors including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lotos Club Foundation Prize in the Arts (2003); as well as awards from Atelier Calder, Sache, France, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1999); and The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and Paula Rhodes Memorial Award (1997).