Miss was born May 27, 1944, in New York City, but she spent her youth moving every year while living primarily in the western United States.

[citation needed] In her influential 1979 essay, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, art critic Rosalind Krauss opens with a description of Mary Miss's, Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys.

The project, located on a three-acre site at the base of the riverfront Esplande, was made in collaboration with architect Stanton Eckstut and landscape designer Susan Child.

[8] A series of large cut out circles descended into the ground describing a column of air that materialized only when the viewer stood with the boards aligned.

[citation needed] Untitled (1973)[9] was created in April and May 1973 at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, as part of the exhibition Four Young Americans (which also featured Ann McCoy, Ree Morton, and Jackie Winsor).

This initial version of the work comprised wooden slats protruding directly along the sides of a square hole cut into the ground on the northeast lawn of the museum.

Constructed in the summer of 1975 under the artist's supervision, the second version was created with powder-coated steel slats protruding from tinted concrete, in its original siting.

In May 2024, an Iowa judge issued a decision to block the demolition of Greenwood Pond: Double Site, ruling that the museum did not have the legal ability to dismantle the artwork without the artist agreeing, but also that the center wasn’t financially liable for restoring it to its original condition.

[citation needed] Roshanara's Net (2008)[14] created a temporary garden of medicinal plants—ayurvedic herbs, trees and bushes—in New Delhi, India.

[citation needed] StreamLines (2013)[15] installed a cluster of mirrors and red beams in five Indianapolis neighborhoods, which radiate out from a central point to nearby streams and waterways.

[16] She was also included in the exhibition Four Young Americans alongside the artists Ann McCoy, Ree Morton, and Jackie Winsor, curated by Ellen H. Johnson and Athena Tacha at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College.