MOUNTAINVILLE, NY.- Storm King Art Center announces a new, site-specific commission that will be added to its permanent collection: a sculpture titled Fallen Sky by artist Sarah Sze.

The new work by Sze will consist of a delicate and entropic 36-foot-diameter spherical cavity pressed into the earth and sheathed in mirrored stainless steel, and will occupy a location just below Storm King’s iconic Museum Building that has been chosen by Sze in consultation with Storm King’s curators. The large scale and shimmering surface of the sculpture will allow it to be seen both up close and from far away across Storm King’s rolling fields.

The announcement of the commission was made on October 9, 2018, at Storm King’s Annual Gala, where Sarah Sze and James Ottaway, Jr. were honored with the Storm King Award, which recognizes meaningful contributions in the fields of visual arts, landscape, and nature conservation.

John P. Stern, President of Storm King Art Center, says, “We are very excited to have commissioned a site-specific sculpture by Sarah Sze for our permanent collection. The work, Fallen Sky, will be installed in a hollow near the base of Museum Hill and will reflect the expansive and ever-changing sky that defines the unique experience of visiting Storm King.”

Sarah Sze explains, “Fallen Sky is cradled in the expansive landscape of Storm King. Pressing into the earth, the concave sculpture reflects the concave sky, creating a sense of the landscape in reverse. As visitors peer into the reflection, they are immersed in the sky from above and below, teetering between a sense that the sculpture has dropped from above and the sense that it is emerging from the earth. Framed by the landscape, the work erases the land and gives form to the air, allowing an intimate view of what is normally vast and immeasurable.”

Nora Lawrence, Storm King’s Senior Curator, adds, “The work engages with themes that are important within the Storm King collection—sharing with many other works a grand scale and a union with nature, while also moving in a new and specific direction: toward ethereality and a deep responsiveness to subtle environmental change. Sarah is one of the most important artists of our time, and we are thrilled that such a thoughtful and responsive work of hers will enter our collection.”

It is the first Storm King commission in nearly a decade, since Maya Lin’s Storm King Wavefield was completed in 2008, and is part of a series of site-specific commissions for Storm King’s permanent collection, which also includes works by Richard Serra, Isamu Noguchi, and Andy Goldsworthy, among others.