2007 Commencement Address
Artist and Alumna Sarah Sze ’87

Sarah Sze, Milton Academy Class of 1987, will address the graduating Class of 2007 at the commencement ceremony on June 8. Sarah is well known in the United States and around the world as a compelling contemporary artist. Her sculptures and installations are intricate works that use objects of everyday life in expansive or even dizzying relationship, making spaces come alive.

Sarah has explained that she begins each piece by “coming to the site, seeing the nature of the building, who uses it, how they use it, how the space works. In terms of sculptural properties, I’m interested in instability. When you’re doing art as your life’s work, your major ideas have to come from some personal space and from reflecting upon your time.”

Sarah’s sculptures are often composed of raw materials available at routine stores—Q-tips, clothes pins, breakfast cereal, ladders, small mirrors, paper, beads, plastic flowers. While the individual objects may be mundane and mass-produced, the effects of their combination are not. The sculptural composites transcend the materials to become aesthetic statements that have moved the art world.

“Many of my pieces function like organisms or absurd life-support systems, incorporating air, water and electricity” Sarah has said. Critics have called her work quixotic, hypnotic, dynamic, utterly fresh, exuberant, funky, resolved. Without question it captures the imagination. Her large installations reward those with an eye for detail. She examines the meaning of architecture, commodities and waste, consumerism and identity, balance and perception, and expansion and chaos. While her work is often referred to as “installation art,” Sarah says she prefers to think of herself as a sculptor.

This past summer, Milton was fortunate enough to be gifted with its own Sarah Sze sculpture entitled “The Edge of One of Many Circles,”—a gift of trustee Richard Perry ’73 and his wife, Lisa Perry. This intricate and mesmerizing work cascades from the highest point of the Schwarz Student Center, beckoning viewers in from every angle.

“I wanted [to create] a piece where the structural and the aesthetic are confusing: you don’t know where one stops and the other begins. The piece is about building, and you can recognize elements about building—bridges, towers, levels, building tools. As you look, the idea of fragile delicacy is sustained, but it’s pushed to the limit by the strength implied in the building elements. Experientially, I want people to be lost (in exploring), and then find a recognizable moment, like the stairs. Those moments draw you in, like the first line or last line of a novel.

“The interplay between fabricated and real relates to that question: What is the line between real life and art? Why is this object valuable to us—because of its aesthetic importance or its practical value? I want to blur the lines.”

After Sarah’s graduated from Milton, she studied at Yale and then earned her MFA at the Columbia University School of Visual Arts in New York, where she is now an associate professor of visual arts. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellow Grant, Sarah has exhibited her sculptural art and installations in august and celebrated museums, universities and galleries throughout the United States and around the world, including cities such as Paris, London, Milan, Leipzig, Kanazawa (Japan), New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, San Diego and Seattle.

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