Richard Serra Biography and Artwork

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Richard Serra (born 2 November 1939) is an American minimalist sculptor known for working with large scale assemblies of sheet metal.

Serra was born in San Francisco and he went on to study English literature at the University of California, Berkeley and later at the University of California, Santa Barbara between 1957 and 1961. He then studied fine art at Yale University between 1961 and 1964. While on the west coast, he helped support himself by working in steel mills which was to have a strong influence on his later work.

Serra's earliest work was abstract expressionist made from molten lead hurled in large splashes against the wall of the studio. Still, he is better known for his minimalist constructions from large rolls and sheets of metal. Usually, the pieces are self supporting and emphasise the weight and nature of the materials. Rolls of lead are design to sag over time, whilst his exterior steel sculptures have a patina of rust developing with age. Serra often works on site specific installations, frequently on a scale that dwarfs the observer.

Serra was one of the first artists to have a public work of art physically rejected by the public. In 1981, Serra installed Tilted Arc, a gently curved, 3.5 metre high arc of rusting mild steel in the Federal Plaza in New York City. There was controversy over the installation from day one, largely from workers in the buildings surrounding the plaza who complained that the steel wall obstructed passage through the plaza. A public hearing in 1985 voted that the work should be moved, but Serra argued the sculpture was site specific and could not be placed anywhere else. Eventually on 15 March 1989, the sculpture was dismantled by federal workers and taken for scrap. William Gaddis satirized these events in his biting 1994 novel A Frolic of His Own.

Another famous work of Serra's is the mammoth sculpture Snake, a trio of sinuous steel sheets creating a curving path, permanently located in the largest gallery of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. In 2005, the museum mounted an exhibition of more of Serra's work.

He has not always fared so well in Spain, however; in 2005, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid announced that a 38-tonne sculpture of his had been "mislaid." (BBC)

In spring 2005, Serra returned to San Francisco to install his first public work in that city (previous negotiations for a commission fell through) - two 50 foot steel blades in the main open space of the new UCSF campus. Weighing 160 tons, placing the work in its Mission Bay location posed serious challenges as it is, like many parts of San Francisco, built on landfill.

He is the brother of famed San Francisco trial attorney Tony Serra.

Select Timeline

Select Exhibitions

• 1966 - From Arp to Arschwager 1, Noah Goldowsky Gallery New York, NY
• 1968 - Primary Structure, Minimal pop Art, Anti-Form, Galerie Ricke Kassel, Germany
• 1971 - Sixth Guggenheim International, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, NY
• 1973 - Opinions and Alternatives: Some Directions in Recent Art, Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, CT
• 1974 - Art as Language (org. under the Int'l. Council of MOMA, NY), Museo de Arte Moderna Bogota
• 1980 - Richard Serra: Elevator 1980, The Hudson River Museum Yonkers, NY
• 1980 - 91e Salon des Artistes Independants, Grand Palais Paris
• 1981 - Richard Serra: Recent Drawings, Blum Helman Gallery New York, NY
• 1982 - A Century of Modern Drawing (org. under the Int'l. Council of MOMA, NY), The British Museum London
• 1983 - Gemini G.E.L., Art and Collaboration, National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.
• 1984 - Richard Serra: Room Installation and Drawings from "Clara-Clara", Leo Castelli Gallery New York, NY
• 1984 - Richard Serra: Sculpture, Galerie Daniel Templon Paris
• 1985 - Black: Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Richard Serra, Akira Ikeda Gallery Tokyo, Japan
• 1987 - Richard Serra: New Editions, Pace Primitive/Prints New York, NY
• 1987 - Richard Serra: Sculpture, Leo Castelli Gallery and Pace Gallery New York, NY
• 1988 - Richard Serra; Graphik, Galerie Cora Holzl Dusseldorf
• 1988 - Richard Serra: Gravures Recentes, Galerie Lelong Paris
• 1989 - The Linear Image: American Master Work on Paper, Marisa del Re Gallery New York, NY
• 1990 - Richard Serra:Tekeningen/Drawings, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastrict, Netherlands
• 1990 - Richard Serra: The Hours of the Day, Kunsthaus Zurich
• 1990 - Image World: Art and Media Culture, The Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY
• 1991 - Richard Serra: The Afangar Icelandic Series, The Museum of Modern Art New York, NY
• 1991 - Richard Serra: Sculpture and Drawings, Gagosian Gallery New York, NY
• 1991 - Richard Serra: Skulptur, Malmo Konsthall Malmo, Sweden
• 1993 - The Tradition of Geometric Abstraction in American Art 1930-1990, The Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY
• 1994 - Beyond Boundaries - Art of the 60s and 70s, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, CA
• 1994 - Sculpture's Maquettes, Pace Wildenstein New York, NY
• 1994 - After and Before, The Renaissance Society at the Univ. of Chicago Chicago, IL
• 1994 - The Tradition of the New: Postwar Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum New York, NY
• 1995 - Richard Serra: To Whom it May Concern, Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY
• 1995 - From Bauhaus to Pop: Masterworks Given by Philip Johnson, The Museum of Modern Art New York, NY
• 1995 - L'Informe; Mode d'Emploi, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, France
• 1995 - Abstraction in the Twentieth Century: Total Risk, Freedom, Discipline, Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum New York, NY
• 1996 - "Weight and Measure" Etchings and Ike and Tina: a Drawing Installation, Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY
• 1996 - Richard Serra Drawings, Galerie Nieves Fernandez Madrid, Spain
• 1996 - Richard Serra: Weight and Measure Etchings, John Berggruen Gallery San Francisco, CA
• 1996 - Richard Serra: Prints, International Biennial of Easel Graphik Kaliningrad-Konigsberg, Russia
• 1996 - Richard Serra: Thirteen Intaglio Prints, Gemini G.E.L. Los Angeles, CA
• 1997 - Leone and Macdonald/Richard Serra, , Rena Bersten Gallery San Francisco, CA
• 1998 - Richard Serra: Rounds, Eleven New Drawings, Galerie m Bochum, Germany
• 1998 - Richard Serra, The Geffen Contemporary at the Mus. of Contem. Art Los Angeles, CA
• 1998 - Richard Serra: Weight and Measure Drawings, Gagosian Gallery New York, NY

Select Artwork

• Trajectory #4 , 2004
• T.E. Vectors © Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist, 2000
• Between the Torus and the Sphere I © Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist, 2006
• St. Louis
• Sunny Rollins, 1999

Quotes

• "And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn't mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public."
• "Basically, what you really want to do is try to engage the viewer's body relation to his thinking and walking and looking, without being overly heavy-handed about it."
• "I'll try to immerse myself in as many of the formal characteristics of site as possible in the landscape."
• "If you look at what the NEA's done, they've completely defanged that institution whereby if you make a work now the government will only sign a contract if it gives them the right to destroy it the day after it's gone up."
• "But what does interest me is the notion that if you do a lot of work it means there's a potential for other people to understand that a lot of things are possible with a sustained effort and that the broadening of experiences is possible and I think that's all art can be."
• "You have to take all of those things, you have to take into consideration the paths, the roadways, how much cloud cover there is, how much foliage cover there is, whether there are streams, all of that comes into play."
• "Cor-Ten is an oxidizing steel and it turns orange and then after about eight years, it turns dark brown, amber, and then holds its color."
• "I think this, I think basically I'm not interested in people following my work or making work like my work."
• "I think you always have to find where the boundary is in relation to the context in order to be able to kind of articulate how you want the space to interact with the viewer."
• "I thought Out of Action was better as a catalogue than the honeycomb because the honeycomb was like walking into one compartment and then another compartment."
• "I'm interested in the largeness of the ocean, I'm interested in the Aurora Borealic feeling of the ocean. I'm interested in the sensibility of the ocean, and I'm interested in ships."
• "I've never lived away from the sea, so it's really part of what I look to and it's part of what nourishes me; without sounding cornball about it, it's something I've always been around."
• "If you get it out into the urban field it's going to be used or misused but it'll also probably provide a way of people acknowledging what the aesthetic is about because people have to confront it every day."
• "Now when you have administrators deciding what sexuality is, and what's a taboo and what's not in terms of content, you got guys, like, Trent Lott who equates homosexuality with a disease."
• "On the other hand, if there's an underlying core of poetry that I go to, I go to the sea. I've lived on the sea all my life. I live on the sea in Cape Breton."
• "So if you've built enough pieces you learn eventually what will give yourself release, what will give the viewer release."
• "The last piece I built in Northern California took me like three years to just come to the conclusion about just what to do."

Publications

• Richard Serra: Large Scale Prints - by Richard Serra, Joseph N. Newland, Adam D. Weinberg, Addison Gallery of American Art (March 2004)
• Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years - by Kynaston McShine, Lynne Cooke, John Rajchman, Benjamin Buchloh, Richard Serra, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (June 1, 2007)
• Richard Serra: Torqued Spirals, Toruses and Spheres - by Richard Serra, Dick Reinartz, Hal Foster, Steidl Publishing (February 15, 2002)
• Writings/Interviews - by Richard Serra, University Of Chicago Press (August 15, 1994)
• The Matter of Time - by Richard Serra, Robert Polidori, Dick Reinartz, Steidl Publishing (January 31, 2006)
• The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents - by Clara Weyergraf-Serra, Martha Buskirk, Richard Serra, The MIT Press (December 6, 1990)
• Pierced Hearts and True Love: A Century of Drawings for Tattoos - by Richard Serra, The Drawing Center; First edition (January 1, 1994)

Quick Facts

• Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.
• Serra was born in San Francisco and he went on to study English literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Serra's earliest work was abstract expressionist made from molten lead hurled in large splashes against the wall of the studio.
• Serra was one of the first artists to have a public work of art physically rejected by the public. In 1981, Serra installed Tilted Arc, a gently curved, 3.5 metre high arc of rusting mild steel in the Federal Plaza in New York City. There was controversy over the installation from day one, largely from workers in the buildings surrounding the plaza who complained that the steel wall obstructed passage through the plaza. A public hearing in 1985 voted that the work should be moved, but Serra argued the sculpture was site specific and could not be placed anywhere else.

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