Sarah Sze; Tilting Planet at the Baltic Gateshead

Visited this exhibition on 26/8/2009 whilst visiting friends in Newcastle. My first experience of a Sarah Sze installation was at the Victoria Miro Gallery in 2007; I felt an immediate affinity with her work because of the obssesive precision of her arrangements, the familiarity of the objects that she was using, her beautiful use tonal use of colour and her extraordinary handling of material qualities. Everything just felt right; It was one of those 'I wish I had made these pieces myself' moments! So I was really looking forward to seeing her response to baltic space.
Some of the work was familar from Vicoria Miro while other parts of the installation were site specific. All components were linked in some way leading me through the gallery space via different paths and connections. I did have to think quite carefully about the best way to negotiate the work as some routes were more difficult than others. Her work is like a three dimensional map inviting you to explore the space in any number of ways.
Without the usual barriers and restrictions associated with viewing work within a gallery, I was free to investigate the scultures on an intimate level. I enjoyed the pysicality of crouching down, bending, peering and tip-toeing around the pieces, conscious all the time that I could be in danger of putting my feet in the wrong place or stepping back into the work while concentrating on another section. I found myself seeking out particular view points, experimenting with perspectives and trying to look at the objects within the space from as many positions as possible. This intraction on both a visual and physical level made the experience even more satisfying and enjoyable. 
Sze suprises you by using a familiar objects in an unfamiliar way, inviting you to look at them afresh and to re-evaluate their value and aesthetics. I enjoy the decorative relationships within her pieces; the use of multiples, repetition and layering all result in beautiful patterns and rythmns. Her practical dexterity and handling of material characteristics is exquiste.    
Reading the pamphlet that accompanies the installation there were two quotes that seemed  to capture the nature of her work for me;

'Size determinds an object, but scale determinds the art. If viewed in terms of scale, not size, a room could be made to take on the immensity of a solar system.'
Robert Smithson, quoted by Sarah Sze in Sarah Sze 

[By making her art in the margins we are drawn to it, searching for it behind pillars, and under cornices. The rewarding discoveries create an intimacy with the details formed in a quiet corner by her tinkering hands]
Robert Blackson, Sarah Sze Tilting Planet, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.  

More information on Sarah Sze; see past exhibitions at the Baltic and Victoria Miro links below

http://www.balticmill.com/

http://www.victoria-miro.com/

 SARAH SZE 10 April - 31 August 2009 Tilting Planet
BALTIC presents American Artist, Sarah Sze’s largest UK solo exhibition to date. Tilting Planet is a cluster of sculptural installations each cobbled together out of common disposable items such as water bottles, drawing pins, paper, salt, string, lamps, matchsticks and wire. Sze’s expansive sculptural vocabulary uses these items constructively to precisely build structures that defamiliarise our preconceived ideas of these objects, lending them a new found use and vitality. These cumulative sculptures mould themselves into spaces – spreading ivy-like throughout the gallery. Sze’s architecturally inspired works are extremely delicate and tower precariously in gravity-defying structures. These spectacular and tactile constructions can be large, complex, and beguiling in scale and composition. Operating almost as an independent ecosystem, the sculptures that comprise Tilting Planet will become a singular topographical terrain, a unique landscape emerging from components of the everyday.
Quoted from Baltic Website