Power to… the art of protest

Tim Adams in The Guardian:

Sarah Sze’s intricate installations were described by the New Yorker as “changing the potential for sculpture”. She has been awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant and represented the US at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

What’s the history of the piece you have made for this Protest show? I originally made a version of the piece for a show in Philadelphia. Every day, I kept the front page of the New York Times and cut out the pictures and replaced them with pictures that were vast in terms of time and space – there could be an image of the ocean, an image from 500 years ago… I was interested in contrasting what was newsworthy with these timeless images. That piece was then accepted for a triennial in Guangzhou. When we were shipping it we were contacted by the Chinese authorities saying they wanted specific front pages to be removed.

What was the problem? It turned out that every front page I was being asked to remove said something about China; it could be just a phrase or something. So I made a new version for China. The piece was actually on the floor, like it was protecting the floor, spattered with paint and so on. So I took black paint and painted out the parts they wanted redacted and then mentioned the fact in the wall note. For this show, I have done the opposite. I left in all the pieces I had redacted and painted black all the rest of the text.

More here. (Note: Thanks to dear friend Gayil Nalls)