The Museum of Modern Art
RICHARD
RICHARD SERRA
SCULPTURE: FORTY YEARS June 3 – September 10, 2007
The Museum of Modern Art 2nd Floor Contemporary Galleries 6th Floor International Council Galleries Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
One of my earliest recollections is that of
obdurate weight to a buoyant structure,
driving with my father, as the sun was com-
free, afloat and adrift. My awe and wonder
ing up, across the Golden Gate Bridge. We
of that moment remained.
were going to Marine Shipyard, where my father worked as a pipe fitter, to watch the launching of a ship. It was on my birthday in the fall of 1943. I was four. When we arrived, the black, blue and orange steel plated tanker was in way, balanced up on
All the raw material that I needed is contained in the reserve of this memory which has become a reoccurring dream. Weight is a value for me, not that it is any more compelling than lightness, but I simply
a perch.
know more about weight than lightness
It was disproportionately horizontal and to
more to say about the balancing of weight,
a four, year old was as large as a skyscraper
the diminishing of weight, the addition and
on its side. l remember walking the arc of
subtraction of weight, the concentration of
the hull with my father, looking at the huge
weight, the rigging of weight, the propping
brass propeller, peering through the stays.
of weight, the placement of weight, the
Then, in a sudden flurry of activity, the shor-
locking of weight, the psychological effects
ing props, beams, blanks, poles, bars, keel
of weight, the disorientation of weight, the
blocks, all the dunnage, was removed, the
disequilibrium of weight, the rotation of
cables released, shackles dismantled, the
weight, the movement of weight, the direc-
come-alongs unlocked. There was a total in-
tionality of weight, the shape of weight.
congruity between the displacement of this enormous tonnage and the quickness and
and therefore I have more to say about it,
I have more to say about the perpetual and
agility with which the task was carried out.
meticulous adjustments of weight, more to
As the scaffolding was tom apart, the ship
actitude of the laws of gravity. I have more
moved down the chute towards the sea;
to say about the processing of the weight
there were the accompanying sounds of
of steel, more to say about the forge, the
celebration, screams, foghorns, shouts,
rolling mill and the open-hearth.
whistles. Freed from its stays, the logs rolling, the ship slid off its cradle with an ever increasing motion. It was a moment of tremendous anxiety as the oiler en route rattled, swayed, tipped, and bounced into the sea, half submerged, to then raise and lift itself and find its balance. Not only had the tanker collected itself, but the witnessing crowd collected itself as the ship went through a transformation from an enormous
say about the pleasure derived from the ex-
It's hard to convey ideas of weight from the objects of everyday life, for the task would be infinite; there is an imponderable vastness to weight. However, I can record the history of art as a history of the particularization of weight. I have more to say about Mantegna, Cezanne and Picasso than about Botticelli, Renoir and Matisse, although I admire what I lack.
I have more to say about the history of
It is the distinction between the prefabricat-
sculpture as a history of weight, more to
ed weight of history and direct experience
say about the monuments of death, more
which evokes in me the need to make things
to say about the weight and density and
that have not been made before.
concreteness of countless sarcophagi, more to say about burial tombs, more to say about Michelangelo and Donatello, more to say about Mycenean and lncan architecture, more to say about the weight of the
I continually attempt to confront the contradictions of memory and to wipe the slate clean, to rely on my own experience and my own materials even if faced with a situation
Olmec heads.
which is beyond hope of achievement. To
We are all restrained and condemned by
to utilize the content of experience so that
the weight of gravity. However, Sisyphus
it becomes known to me, to then challenge
pushing the weight of his boulder
the authority of that experience and there-
endlessly up the mountain does not catch
by challenge myself.
me as much as Vulcan’s tireless labor at the bottom of the smoking crater, hammering out raw material. The constructive process, the daily concentration and effort appeal to me more than the light fantastic, more than the quest for the ethereal. Everything we choose in life for its lightness soon reveals its unbearable weight. We face the fear of unbearable weight: the weight of repression, the weight of constriction, the weight of government, the weight of tolerance, the weight of resolution, the weight of responsibility, the weight of destruction, the weight of suicide, the weight of history which dissolves weight and erodes meaning to a calculated construction of palpable lightness. The residue of history: the printed page, the flicker of the image, always fragmentary, always saying something less than the weight of experience.
invent methods about which I know nothing,
— Richard Serra
Sequence 2006 Photo by Lorenz Kienzle
“We are all restrained and condemned by the weight of gravity. However, Sisyphus pushing the weight of his boulder endlessly up the mountain does not catch me as much as Vulcan’s tireless labor at the bottom of the smoking crater, hammering out raw material.”
Sculpture Garden
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1. Torqued Ellipse IV 1998 Weatherproof steel 12' 3"x26' 6"x32' 6" The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fractional and promised gift of Leon and Debra Black, 1999 2. Intersection II 1992-93 Weatherproof steel, four identical conical sections Two sections 13' 1 1/2" high x 51' 9" along the chord x 2 1/8" thick; two sections 13' 1 1/2" high x 50' 9" along the chord x 2 1/8" thick The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, 1998
3. Sequence 2006 Weatherproof steel Overall: 12' 9" x 40' 8 3/8" x 65' 2 3/16" Collection the artist 4. Torqued Torus Inversion 2006 Weatherproof steel Two torqued toruses each overall: 12' 9" x 36' 1" x 58' 9", plate: 2" thick Collection the artist 5. Band 2006 Weatherproof steel Overall: 12' 9" x 36' 5" x 71' 9 1/2", plate: 2" thick Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gift of Eli and Edythe Broad
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1. Belts 1966-67 Vulcanized rubber and neon tubing 6' x 25' x 20" Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Panza Collection
4. Trough Pieces 1966-67 Rubber and fiberglass Two parts: 59 1/2" x 18 1/2" x 6 1/4", 71" x 6" x 6" Museum Ludwig, Cologne
2. Doors 1966-67 Rubber and fiberglass Four parts, each 36" x 9' x 2" Private Collection, San Francisco, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
5. Chunk 1967 Vulcanized rubber 48 1/2"x 18" x 19 3/4" The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Promised gift of Emily Rauh Pulitzer and purchase, 2004
3. Remnant 1966-67 Vulcanized rubber 6' 6 3/4" x 37 3/8" x 1 3/16" Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna
6. Plinths 1967 Fiberglass, rubber, and neon tubing Five pieces, each: 8" x 8' x 13/16" Centre Georges Pompidou, MusĂŠe national d'art moderne, Paris
7. Slant Step Folded 1967 Rubber 8' 6" x 28" x c. 5" Centre Georges Pompidou, MusĂŠe national d'art moderne, Paris 8. To Lift 1967 Vulcanized rubber 36" x 6' 8" x 60" Collection of the artist 9. Untitled 1967 Rubber 8' 4" x 42" x 6" Collection the artist 10. Bent Pipe Roll 1968 Lead 56" high; roll 6" diameter; 50" deep Collection the artist 11. Prop 1968 Lead Plate: 60" x 60" x 1/8", pole: 8' long Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Gift of the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc. 12. 1-1-1-1 1969 Lead Four plates, each: 48" x 48", pole: 7' long Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, DĂźsseldorf 13. 5:30 1969 Lead Four plates, each: 48" x 48" x 3/4", pole: 60" long Collection the artist 14. Cutting Device: Base Plate Measure 1969 Lead, wood, stone, and steel Overall 12" x 18' x 15' 7 3/4" The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Philip Johnson, 1979
15. Equal (Corner Prop Piece) 1969-70 Lead antinomy Plate 48" x 48" x 3/4", pole 7' 1/4" long x 4 3/4" in diameter The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gilman Foundation Fund, 1977 16. Floor Pole Prop 1969 Lead Plate: 100" x 95 1/2" x 1/2"; pole: 6' 8" long Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 17. Four Plates Edges Up 1969 Lead Four plates, each: 55 1/8" x 55 1/8" x 3/4" Collection the artist 18. One Ton Prop (House of Cards) 1969 Lead antimony Four plates, each: 48" x 48" x 1" The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Grinstein Family, 1986 19. V+5: To Michael Heizer 1969 Lead Four plates, each: 48" x 48" x 3/4", pole: 7' long Collection the artist 20. Circuit II 1972-86 Hot-rolled steel Four plates, each: 10' x 20' x 1" The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Enid A. Haupt and S. I. Newhouse, Jr. Funds, 1986 21. Delineator 1974-75 Hot-rolled steel Two plates, each: 1" x 10' x 26' Collection the artist 22. Equal-Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi 1986 Weatherproof steel Four slabs, two: 58 1/2" x 58 1/2" x 9 1/2", two: 58 1/2" x 16' 4 1/8" x 9 1/2" Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Thomas Beller: You wrote that Sisyphus pushing the weight of the boulder up the mountain doesn’t catch you as much as Vulcan's tireless labor at the bottom of a smoking crater, hammering out raw material. Do you consider the two to be equally futile? Richard Serra: What I mean is that I am not interested in an idealistic pretense of art-making. I am not interested in the nirvana on top of the mountain. I’m interested in the daily labour and the sustained effort of making art. I come from a working class background. If you’re a student you need to have a desk where you go to sit down and write. And if you’re an artist, you have to have a place to go to, or a place in your head you go to, where you organize your work. I think work comes out of work. There’s no other way of doing it. My fascination with Vulcan has to do with the fact that I like the forge. The difference between forging and casting is that if you forge something, you get a third more weight condensed into the same volume, and you draw the volume through the process of forging. When you forge, you have to work the steel when it’s molten. Forging allows you to control how you want the edge of a cube to look, whether you want the edges more or less angular. It is impossible to have that control when you are at the mercy of an industrial found object. Usually, I try to stay on top of the process of building from SPLASH April 1989
the inception to the completion and installation of a piece.
Kynaston McShine: The installation at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2005, surely one of the most wonderful installations of your work, is a real achievement—in a way a summation of the Torqued Ellipses.
Richard Serra: It’s a summation of the Torqued Ellipses and it’s also the beginning of using toruses, spheres, and spirals. I was able to place the pieces in relation to the entirety of the space. The space has no side entrances or exits. If you want to experience the entire installation you have to walk the length of the space and back, but there is no prescribed way of seeing those pieces. You determine your own sequence of viewing. KMS: Yes, you allow the viewer a great deal of freedom in this environment. The space has its own formality, yet something about the installation makes the whole experience a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk.
RS: I could have done a mini-retrospective. That was certainly an option. But I decided to work out a coherent installation that would be representative of the body of work I’d done in the past seven or eight years. To bring that work together in one place would enable anyone going there to understand its evolution. Without knowing anything about sculpture you understand that the single and double ellipse, the spirals, and the piece made up of torus and sphere sections share a language and a syntax. You become a reader of that language in your bodily movement. You can go anywhere you want, but anywhere you turn you are within the volume not only of the encapsulating architecture but of the field that unfolds as sculpture. The entire field becomes one of the sculpture, as you’re spun into and out of the different pieces. KMS: Let’s talk about the show we’re doing here at MoMA. This is a sculpture exhibition, it has no drawing in it, but drawing is an important part of your practice, isn’t it?
RS: Yes, as an autonomous activity but also in relation to sculpture. KMS: You don’t do too much drawing for sculpture, do you? RS: No, none. Within sculpture, though, the way a form is articulated in terms of its curvature, its edge, its volume, how it displaces its volume or holds its volume, or unfolds or contracts, has a lot to do with the clarity of its drawing. KMS: Let’s talk about the new pieces for the exhibition. RS: We can start with Torqued Torus Inversion. It is easy to understand what a torqued torus is if you think about the rim of a bicycle wheel laid on the ground. It is basically a form that curves in two directions: it curves in elevation and it curves horizontally. The inside of the bicycle rim is convex in elevation whereas the outside is concave in elevation. Now try to visualize this circular rim as being first pulled into an oval, then rotated or torqued so that the top edge ends up at a right angle to the bottom. Now en-
large the torqued, ovalized rim to the height of twelve feet nine inches, with its long axis stretching to thirty-six feet, and you have it. Torqued Torus Inversion consists of two of the forms I just tried to describe placed next to each other, one of them inverted in relation to the other. One of them leans toward you on the inside and away from you on the outside, the other leans away from you on the inside and toward you on the outside, which means one form converges when the other flowers outward.
KMS: For the spectator I get the feeling that memory is involved in pieces like this one—somewhere your memory comes into play in relation to this reversal. It involves mental gymnastics in terms of the dialogue between the forms and the person moving on the inside or outside.
RS: Even if they don’t grasp the inversion or the reversal, I think they’ll understand that there’s a similarity between these forms. KMS: What about Intersection 2, the work in the Sculpture Garden—doesn’t that sculpture involve a similar inversion of plates?
RS: Intersection 2 is made of four conical sections. In a conical section the radius on top differs from the radius on the bottom. If you place the long radius on the bottom the conical plate will lean inward, and you’ll be walking in a concavity, with the overhang leaning toward you. If you place the short radius on the bottom of the same plate will lean outward. The four plates in Intersection 2 set up two flanking paths, one defined by two plates leaning away from you and one by two planes leaning toward you. The two paths enclose a space where the plates on either side are parallel, leaning in the same direction. KMS: I refer to it as a Cunard liner. It has a sort of hull-of-a-ship feeling to it. RS: I guess some of the pieces allow for nautical references. My father worked in shipyards and I’ve built in shipyards. I’ve walked around a lot of hulls in dry dock.
The next new work, Sequence, is probably best described as two different spirals connected. At both ends you have the choice of entering through one of two openings. One will lead you to the containment of an interior space; the other will direct you into a seemingly endless path between two leaning walls. You cannot recollect or reconstruct a definite memory of the curvilinear path that connects one spiral to the other, nor of the interior spaces of the two spirals. You cannot map the piece after you’ve walked it. The third new work, the one you saw in the steel mill in Germany, is called Band. It reads very horizontally and has no interior or exterior. As the band of steel curves inward and outward to the length of seventy feet, it forms four cavities, all of them different. They are similar in plan but different in surface movement. I wanted the speed of the skin to configure the volumes as you walk them. Nothing repeats. There is no beginning, no end to the band. Both of these recent works promote movement through form. In both, form appears indeterminate and unpredictable, with constant variations of its surface throughout. The surface curvature is perpetually changing, which accounts for the fact that the time of walking does not have a regular flow. It feels as if you are subjected to an accelerated gravitational pull.
Richard Serra was born in 1938 in San
Serra has participated in several Documen-
Francisco, California. He studied at the
ta exhibitions (Kassel, 1972, 1977, 1982,
University of California (Berkeley and Santa
and 1987), and in the Venice Biennales of
Barbara) and at Yale University. His first
1980, 1984, 2001, and 2013. In 2005,
solo gallery exhibitions were held at Galleria
eight large-scale works were permanently
La Salita, Rome (1966), and at the Leo
installed at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Castelli Warehouse, New York (1969).
In 2014, Serra installed a major perma-
His first solo museum exhibition was presented at Pasadena Art Museum (1970). Serra’s work has since been the subject of in numerous solo museum exhibitions, including those at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1977); Centre Pompidou,
nent landscape sculpture in the desert of the Brouq Nature Reserve in western Qatar. Serra was awarded Les Insignes de Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, France’s highest government honor, in 2015.
Paris (1984); Museum of Modern Art, New
Serra lives and works in New York and Nova
York (1986 and 2007); among many others
Scotia, Canada.
in Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. A traveling survey of Serra’s drawings was on view in 2011–12 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Menil Collection, Houston.
The exhibition is organized by Kynaston McShine, Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art, and Lynne Cooke, Curator, Dia Art Foundation. The exhibition is made possible with the major support of LVMH / MoĂŤt Hennessy / Louis Vuitton. The Museum acknowledges important grants from Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman, Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, and Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro. Additional generous funding is provided by The Henry Luce Foundation, Eli and Edythe Broad, The Buckeye Foundation in honor of Eli Broad, Marie-JosĂŠe and Henry Kravis, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Keith and Kathy Sachs, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim Foundation, Sarah-Ann and Werner H. Kramarsky, and Elizabeth and Henry T. Segerstrom. The accompanying publication is made possible by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Additional funding is provided by the Dale S. and Norman Mills Leff Publication Fund. Accommodations generously provided by Millennium Hotels and Resorts.
The Museum of Modern Art
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