Shorter than the Day
| Company type | Art installation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Art |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Founder | Sarah Sze |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
| Products | Art installation |
Shorter than the Day is a 2020 art installation by Sarah Sze, positioned above the baggage claim area in LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B. This spherical composition consists of suspended rods adorned with 900 photographs documenting the New York sky from sunrise to sunset. Drawing partial inspiration from the Grand Central Terminal clock, Sze referred to it as her most intricate sculpture during its debut.
Description
Sarah Sze designed Shorter than the Day as a globe-like constellation formed by hanging rods, each featuring 900 images capturing New York’s sky over the course of a single day. Circulating around the piece offers an immersive experience that mirrors the progression from daylight to nightfall, symbolizing Earth's rotation.
The artwork extends across Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport, starting at the departures level atrium and continuing through an opening in the floor down into the baggage claim area. Its name alludes to Emily Dickinson’s poem "Because I could not stop for Death".
Production
Commissioned by LaGuardia Gateway Partners in collaboration with the Public Art Fund, Shorter than the Day was conceived to integrate site-specific art within the terminal’s architectural framework, engaging globally acclaimed artists such as Sarah Sze. The terminal’s open-plan design, characterized by flowing spatial arrangements and abundant natural illumination, enabled artists to incorporate structural elements into their creations. Despite being constructed from metal, Sze’s piece conveys an impression of lightness as it hangs from the ceiling.
Sze described her work as resembling "a mirage," possessing an ethereal and delicate quality that evokes "the sensation of shifting time and place" often associated with air travel. Manufactured by Amuneal in Philadelphia, the sculpture weighs approximately five tons and comprises aluminum and steel rods joined by alligator clips. Created amid New York City’s COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, it was unveiled on June 11, 2020, alongside installations by three other artists. The iconic Grand Central Terminal clock served as a source of inspiration for Sze.
The sculpture embodies a “lightness in being,” harmonizing with the terminal's vast scale while seemingly floating, thereby animating the space in a distinctive manner. It engages deeply with New York’s architectural landscape, cultural heritage, and the airport’s history—offering more than mere visual interest by functioning as a form of public education that invites travelers to interact with and contemplate their surroundings. By occupying a prominent public location, Sze’s installation demonstrates how site-specific art can activate environments through dialogues grounded in history and materiality.
Influences on Sze's subsequent works
Since the late 1990s, Sarah Sze has investigated media that fuse information, technology, materiality, and temporality. Her sculptures—assemblages composed of everyday materials—reflect processes comparable to constructed photography. In Shorter Than the Day, she combines transient elements with durable powder-coated metal forms, representing both temporal fluidity and permanence. Rather than simply staging images, Sze manipulates physical components in ways reminiscent of early photographic techniques such as Oscar Rejlander’s combination printing.
This work conveys the passage of time through hundreds of photographs depicting New York City’s sky from dawn until midnight. Its spherical shape reveals shifting viewpoints as observers move around it, symbolizing both temporal fragility and Earth’s vulnerability. The piece contemplates themes of permanence and ephemerality, echoing Emily Dickinson’s lines “We passed the Setting Sun / Or rather – He passed us."
Expanding on concepts of time and perception, Sze’s 2024 installation “Pictures at an Exhibition” draws inspiration from Modest Mussorgsky’s piano suite based on paintings. Similar to orchestral movements, this work links media and sensory experiences through rapid transitions between fragmented and unified images, creating constellations of fleeting moments that range from intimate to universal.
The evolving visuals reflect digital representation's transient qualities alongside transformations in memory and perception. Accompanied by new paintings combining layered acrylics, oils, and photographic prints, Sze blurs distinctions between digital and analog mediums throughout gallery spaces. Her practice balances stillness with motion and order with disorder while maintaining an organic kinetic energy that explores image-making in relation to physical construction.
Further reading