Richard Serra, 1938-2024

By Alice Lindman

One Ton Prop (House of Cards), 1969, four metal plates, MoMA

Entering the final month of the year, one is bound to reflect upon events and people who have shaped it. For art enthusiasts, thoughts are likely to wander to the extraordinary life of Richard Serra, one of the most influential and prolific artists of our time. His passing in March 2024 marked the end of an unparalleled career that redefined the boundaries of contemporary sculpture. 

While Serra’s impact on the art world was immense, he himself came from a modest background. Native to San Francisco, his father worked as a pipe fitter, and the artist would grow up visiting the Marine shipyards. Perhaps it was in his childhood that the gravitas of metal and its potential for manipulation and malleability began to germinate in Serra’s inner psyche, although he would not discover the medium’s full potential until much later in his career. Serra went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he continued to surround himself with the elements by working in steel mills to support himself. He later received an advanced degree in fine arts from Yale, whereafter he moved to New York in 1966.    

The New York art scene in the 1960s was dominated by postwar painters like Jackson Pollock, whose canvases dominated by drip motifs and slathered emotions reigned over the art world. But Serra was uninterested and fell into the circle of a freewheeling group of artists who strove to experiment and redefine what art could be. This primed Serra for a holiday trip to Spain in 1966 that sealed his fate. After marvelling at Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas, Serra describes how he “realized [he] would never get beyond the virtuosity of that painting, how Velázquez somehow made the viewer the subject.” And after that, he focused solely on sculpture and began experimenting with industrial material.  

This was a period of transformation for Serra. Initially, the artist tried an experimental method of casting from architecture, doing so by scooping ladles of molten lead and splashing it against the wall of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Serra also tested the boundaries of gravity, propping two lead poles against lead plates, hanging them from the wall or tilting them so they leaned on each other (See One Ton Prop, 1969). He played with danger, grappling with concepts that were unknown, and uncharted artistic territory.  

Tilted Arc, 1981, steel

Despite Serra’s experimental artistic practice, however, the genius of his endeavours was not recognised at first. An example of the widespread ignorance towards his craft was exemplified in 1981, when the artist installed Tilted Arc (1981) a 37-metre long, curved-steel wall beside the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan, which locals dubbed an impasse, and which led to a petition for its removal. The government eventually dismantled the piece, an occurrence that Serra believed to be “an albatross that hung around [his] neck for years.” But Serra eventually achieved public redemption in the mid-1990s with his soaring ribbonlike structures. He was inspired by the Baroque church San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, particularly by how its oculus mirrors the mosaic tile oval on the floor below. Serra’s most famous sculpture is arguably Snake (1994-7). Commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 2005, the sculpture is positively baroque. Built out of steel, it is dominated by ellipses and spirals, curling through spaces which the gallery visitor can wander. It is its interactive quality which makes Serra’s work unique, facilitating a remarkable interaction by promoting a strong experience of gradual discovery.  

Snake, 1994-7, weathered steel in three units, Guggenheim Bilbao

Serra’s last historic and artistic feat was his piece East-West/West-East (2014) in Qatar, which is generally considered his most logistically complicated installation. Incessant sandstorms kept obscuring the pouring of the concrete bases, and the cranes risked shifting the sand below. Yet Serra remained professional, overseeing the construction throughout, unbothered by the chaos. The four, thin, steel plates spring straight up, reaching nearly 5 stories tall, and collectively covering half a mile. The plateaus are covered by crushed fossil shells that once resided in a sea that no longer exists. The sculptures presence reconstructs the skyline in a manner which makes it possible to imagine ancient waves surging over the topography. Serra, through the power of art, manages to miraculously make one feel as if one is underwater in a desert.  

East-West/West-East, installation view, 2014, weatherproof steel, Brouq Nature Reserve, Qatar

Serra’s artistic career was one marked by success. In 2001 he received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale, in 2015 it was the Légion d’honneur in France and, three years later, it was the J Paul Getty Medal. Serra died from pneumonia at his home in Orient, New York, on March 26, 2024, at the age of 85. 

Bibliography

Crow, K. ‘The Reinvented Visions of Richard Serra’. Wall Street Journal. 5 Nov 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-reinvented-visions-of-richard-serra-1446687924.

Masters, C. ‘Richard Serra Obituary’. The Guardian. 27 March 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/mar/27/richard-serra-obituary.

‘Richard Serra’. San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art. Accessed 24 November 2024. https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/richard_serra/.