Director's Message
Framing this issue of The Nasher are two exhibitions, Groundswell: Women of Land art, opening in September, and Sarah Sze, opening in the spring. In many respects, these projects could not be more different, and those differences offer some measure of the breadth in the Nasher’s program.
While Groundswell offers a grand survey, bringing together works by 12 artists, Sarah Sze hones in on a single artist’s practice. Groundswell’s purview is historical in scope, addressing work produced in the 1960’s, ‘70s,‘80s, and 90’s, contextualizing it in terms of the ideas and conditions of the time, whereas Sarah Sze presents an installation—produced for the occasion—by a contemporary artist. The two exhibitions offer a striking contrast in materials—the Groundswell artists often working with or drawing objects from the land itself, presenting organic material with a minimum of manipulation, while Sarah Sze’s installations deploy a dizzying array of contemporary matter—the most humble and common household objects, the flotsam and jetsam of contemporary industrial production, the relatively advanced technology of video monitors and projectors. And while Groundswell represents a project of historical recuperation, shedding light on artists and a movement that deserve greater recognition, Sarah Sze allows a Dallas audience to experience work by one of the most recognized and honored artists of our time, while presenting that artist the opportunity to create work for the unique and distinctive spaces of the Nasher.
Conceptually, too, the concerns of Sarah Sze’s art may seem distant from those of the Groundswell artists. Working outdoors, whether in remote, rural landscapes or in urban/suburban settings, the Groundswell artists attended to nature and natural rhythms, exploring and revealing places and processes, and suggesting the position and the impact of humans within them. Their work does not so much abjure technology, as to suggest (if only by exclusion) its insufficiency in the face of deeper and more enduring systems and forces.
Most (though by no means all) of Sarah Sze’s work is produced for interior spaces, and the dizzying array of manufactured objects contained in her installations are testament at once to human ingenuity and excess. Technology is embraced, if perhaps critiqued, in works which offer magisterial tours de force of the orchestration of mechanical moving parts and digitally captured moving images.
But as distinct as might be the experience of a recent work by Sarah Sze from one of those produced by the 12 artists of Groundswell, important threads of meaning and even form connect them. The work of all of these artists proposes that the experience of space and even form is not dependent upon—indeed is more important than—its delineation. And that the experience of space—exterior or interior, cosmic or microscopic—is necessarily connected to the experience of time. Indeed, time and space, mediated or not by human intervention, is a fundamental subject for Groundswell artists and Sarah Sze alike.
This issue of the Nasher offers some sense of the range of themes and ideas represented in Groudswell and Sarah Sze, as well as their resonance in the works of other artists nearby. Visitors to the Nasher this fall and spring will directly encounter these ideas—and many more—in the exhibitions on view, their related collection installations, as well as a wealth of programs generated for the occasion. I’ve no doubt that discoveries and surprises will abound, occasions for delight and for contemplation. And with that in mind, I invite you now to peruse the pages of this publication, and to visit us at the Nasher Sculpture Center in the months ahead.
Very best,
Jeremy
Editor’s Note
This issue embarked on its editorial journey with aimless precision—a stream of consciousness arrangement, led by the anticipation of two upcoming exhibitions: Groundswell: Women of Land Art, opening this fall, and Title: Sarah Sze, opening next spring. Despite a lukewarm approach to structure, clear themes bubbled up, as they always do. And while sitting in the languid, steamy Texas heat, combing through draft essays with my feet dangling in a newly installed, 8-foot stock tank pool (a gesture of survival), the sway of water was undeniable.
Bodies of water flow these pages, and once you see it, the floodgates open: a lost stream, an extinct ocean, the humanity of a river, a bursting geyser, AI-generated poolscapes, a man-made pond, a groundswell, a fountain—hot damn, even Tamara Johnson’s tape is ocean blue!
With this fresh and aqueous frame of mind, one conditioned to see with blue-colored lenses, it seems our whole world is framed by the fact of water. 71% of the earth and 60% of our bodies, the three-atom molecule churns life, shapes land, and carries civilizations. Every earthly thing knows it. And as I picture it rushing or meandering through existence, inevitably sopping into the next thing, I am reminded of Karla Garcia’s La Línea Imaginaria (page 20). Despite geographic borders, the Chihuahuan desert, upon which her sculptures rest, resists containment.
Regardless of what themes you find—“we don’t need no stinkin’ categories” -David Searcy (page 24) —whether if you read The Nasher front to back or simply flip through the imagery and headlines, I invite you to pour something over ice, watch the condensation bead, and float along.
Categorically yours,
Adrienne Lichliter-Hines, editor in chief
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