Counting to Four

Sarah Sze, Counting to Four, 2023, oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on aluminum composite, aluminum, and wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Karl Iagnemma and Ann-Kristin Lund, 2024.1A-B
Copied Sarah Sze, Counting to Four, 2023, oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on aluminum composite, aluminum, and wood, 84 × 75 3⁄4 × 3 in. (213.4 × 192.4 × 7.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Karl Iagnemma and Ann-Kristin Lund, 2024.1A-B

Artwork Details

Title
Counting to Four
Artist
Date
2023
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
84 × 75 3⁄4 × 3 in. (213.4 × 192.4 × 7.6 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Karl Iagnemma and Ann-Kristin Lund
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on aluminum composite, aluminum, and wood
Classifications
Subjects
  • Waterscape — time — sunset
  • Figure — fragment — hand
  • Abstract
Object Number
2024.1A-B
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2024.1A-B

Artwork Description

When you look at Counting to Four, what draws your attention? Is it the splintered pictures of glowing sunsets? Or the images of hands, shown as they mold clay and comfort a child? Or is it the areas of abstraction--striated fields layered with photographs, paint, tape, and paper?

Sarah Sze aims to capture the experience of contemporary consciousness in her art. She explores the ways that our constant encounter with images--on the internet and TV, and in newspapers and magazines--affects how we understand the physical world, our memories, and time itself. Mirroring the focus and fragmentation of the mind at work, Sze's goal is to scramble signals, creating something that is "always flickering. . . . fragile. What it's made up [of] is always falling apart and coming together before your eyes."