Case Study #72001: Shorter than the Day
Artist: Sarah Sze
Location: LaGuardia Airport – Queens, NY
Client: LaGuardia Gateway Partners in partnership with Public Art Fund for LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B
Our latest collaboration with New York based installation artist, Sarah Sze, at LaGuardia Airports new Terminal B!
“Shorter than the Day,” named after a line in an Emily Dickinson poem, suspends from the ceiling at the departures level and descends through an opening in the floor to appear monumental and ethereal overhead at baggage claim. The sculpture conveys a vast spherical matrix over 50 feet tall and 26 feet in diameter composed of 1/4″ steel bars, welded into segments, powder coated, and mechanically assembled into place. Fastened to the rim of the sphere are over 900 image panels made of aluminum plates of varying shape and size, each with embedded images of the New York sky shot over the course of a day from dawn to dusk. Each image was printed on aluminum and made to look like torn paper hanging on clips with hits of yellow sticky-note sleeves in some places. The five ton sculpture appears like a mirage, even at over 50′ tall and 26′ in diameter, with thousands of individual elements.
Read more about the making of “Shorter than the Day” on Architectural Digest.
Sarah Sze, Shorter than the Day, 2020, Powder coated aluminum and steel, Commissioned by LaGuardia Gateway Partners in partnership with Public Art Fund for LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B
Photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of the artist; LaGuardia Gateway Partners; Public Art Fund, NY. © Sarah Sze
