Sarah Sze: Triple Point

The American artist's installations for the United States pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition — Venice Biennale reference the fragility of equilibrium and a constant desire for stability.

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At the 55th International Art Exhibition — Venice Biennale, the United States Pavilion showcases the work of artist Sarah Sze. Titled "Triple Point", the exhibition comprises a series of interrelated installations that transform the rooms of the pavilion into a chain of immersive experiences. Extending beyond the confines of the gallery spaces to include the building’s exterior, entrance, and exit, the exhibition directly engages the Neoclassical building, challenging its Palladian sense of order.

Sarah Sze: Triple Point — Top and above: Sarah Sze, *Triple Point (Planetarium)*, 2013. Installation view at the United States Pavilion

The exhibition brings together many of the ideas that Sze has developed during her career. “Central to the exhibition is the notion of the 'compass' and how we locate ourselves in a perpetually disorienting world," says Sze. "Each of the rooms functions as an experimental site, in which objects attempt to become instruments or assemblages that seek to measure or model our location in time and space. The aspiration to build models that capture complexity — and the impossibility of that undertaking — underscores this body of work.”

In thermodynamics, the term “triple point” designates a singular combination of temperature and pressure at which all three phases of a substance (gas, liquid, and solid) can exist in perfect equilibrium. Triangulation — the measurement of distance from three ordinal points — is also used to specify a unique location in space. Sze’s work references both these ideas — the fragility of equilibrium and the constant desire to create stability and location.

Much of the exhibition evolved on-site over a three-month installation period. Parts of the installation were “erased” during this time, becoming, as Sze says, “archaeological remnants or failed experiments.” Traces from the urban landscape of Venice — photographs of stone, architectural materials and tickets from the vaporetto — were collected to serve the growth of these installations. As a result, objects appear to be in flux, with viral growth and impending decay in evidence. Small fragments of the sculptures were also dispersed throughout shops and roofs around the via Garibaldi, to be discovered by chance within the fabric of daily life.

In the courtyard, a dynamic teetering structure climbs and descends the exterior of the building. Against one exterior wall of the pavilion it coalesces to form an exterior space that reveals itself fully only much later in the exhibition. The entrance to the pavilion has been relocated to a former exit door to the left of the entry rotunda. Once inside, the viewer encounters makeshift structures, some seemingly still under construction, that recall models, machines, and facilities such as a planetarium, observatory, laboratory and pendulum – devices of measurement or locators of the body in space.

At the end of the exhibition, a garden-like space is revealed, framed by a wall of glass. This window, a 1970s alteration to the building that is often concealed, becomes integral to this piece — the architecture itself becoming a device through which aspects of the installation are reflected and refracted but remain out of reach.

Through 24 November 2013
Sarah Sze: Triple Point
United States Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition — Venice Biennale
Giardini, Venice

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