In a significant artistic moment for Hong Kong's vibrant art scene, acclaimed American artist Sarah Sze will present her first solo exhibition in Asia at Gagosian Hong Kong from March 25 to May 3, 2025. The show features an impressive collection of new large-scale mixed-media paintings alongside her innovative hanging sculptures, offering visitors a rare opportunity to experience Sze's distinctive artistic vision firsthand.
Sarah Sze, Forever Now, 2025, oil, acrylic, archival paper, acrylic polymers, ink, dibond, aluminum, and wood, 103 1/4, 158 inches (262.3× 401.3 cm) © Sarah Sze
Exploring the Image-Saturated Contemporary Experience
Sze's latest exhibition delves into how we create meaning from the constant stream of images that define modern existence. Through her work, you will encounter a thoughtfully curated visual vocabulary—birds, wolves, hands, sunsets—that appears, disappears, and transforms across different media. This pictorial conversation between elements encourages deeper reflections on time, memory, and perception.
"Images and their authorship are always in flux. We build, rebuild, and trade images like never before," says Sze, articulating the conceptual foundation of her practice.
Blurring Boundaries Between Dimensions
What makes this exhibition particularly compelling is Sze's masterful ability to destabilize the boundary between two and three dimensions. Her paintings employ a unique image-making system that feels simultaneously recursive and generative. Using elements from past works as starting points, she layers gestural brushstrokes, colored tape, torn paper with printed images, and various other materials to create compositions that beautifully confuse the digital and analog, the tactile and immaterial.
In "Rip Tide" (2025), a collaged bird soars above vibrant sweeps of pink, orange, and gold paint that echo a flock ascending toward the painting's upper register. Through these striking compositional techniques, recurrent imagery appears and disappears, evolves and disintegrates—existing in a state of constant flux that mirrors the nature of memory itself.
Sarah Sze, Rip Tide, 2025 (detail), Oil paint, acrylic paint, archival paper, acrylic polymers, ink, dibond, aluminum, and wood, 103 1/4 x 71 1/4 inches (262.3 x 18 cm)
© Sarah Sze, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Sarah Sze, Double Speed, 2025 (detail), Oil paint, acrylic paint, archival paper, acrylic polymers, ink, dibond,, aluminum, and wood, 103 1/4 x 71 1/4 inches (262.3 x 181 cm) © Sarah Sze, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
East-West Artistic Dialogue
As you move through Sze's works, you become a traveler navigating the architecture of her compositions. Her approach draws thoughtfully from traditional Japanese printmaking, Chinese scroll painting, and Western landscape techniques, creating a meaningful cross-cultural artistic dialogue particularly resonant for her Asian debut.
In "Double Speed" (2025), a small deer anchored at the bottom establishes a vast sense of vertical scale, while a branch extending diagonally creates a fascinating interplay between foreground and depth. These varied approaches to perspective have long influenced Sze's exploration of the relationship between two- and three-dimensional space.
Weightless Sculptures in Dialogue with Hong Kong Harbor
Complementing the dense, immersive paintings are Sze's relatively weightless hanging sculptures from her "Fractured Image" series. These pieces feature suspended fragments of pigment prints imperfectly reassembled, caught in uncertain moments where viewers cannot distinguish whether the elements are coming together or pulling apart.
Unfolding like an archipelago of images across the gallery, these ephemeral arrangements create their own space while simultaneously engaging with views of Hong Kong harbor visible through the gallery windows—adding another layer of meaning to Sze's ongoing exploration of space, time, and perception.
This exhibition presents a unique opportunity to experience the work of a major contemporary artist whose interdisciplinary approach challenges how we perceive and process imagery in today's visually saturated world. Whether you are an avid art collector, a casual gallery-goer, or simply curious about contemporary artistic practices, Sarah Sze's Hong Kong debut promises a thought-provoking and visually stimulating experience.
About Sarah Sze
Born in 1969 in Boston, Sarah Sze lives and works in New York. Her work appears in prestigious collections worldwide, including M+ in Hong Kong, Tate in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her impressive exhibition history includes representing the United States at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 and major solo shows at institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain.
Sarah Sze
Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 25, 6–8pm
Exhibition Dates: March 25–May 3, 2025
Location: Gagosian, 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong
Admission: Free
Website: https://gagosian.com/
