Comments on: Ask a Curator: Richard Serra vs. the Elements

By: Hannah

Hannah — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:16:34 +0000

Thank you for the response! I saw Serra’s “Vortex” at the Modern in Fort Worth. I loved not only being able to walk through the piece, like most of Serra’s works, but to interact with it with sounds! I hope to make it to LA to see “Band.”

By: Michael Buitron

Michael Buitron — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:35:33 +0000

No matter their final location, all Serra sculptures spend months or years undisturbed, exposed to the elements to establish a relatively even patina. A few years back, a group[ of artists curated a show, “”Invisible Graffiti: Magnet Show” where they hopped the fence and installed a temporary show on the oxidizing sculptures. There are some pictures here: http://lantuazon.wordpress.com/invisble-graffiti-magnet-show/

Looking at the tops of the Serras at LACMA, it’s fairly easy to make out the rectangular marks left by the clamps used to hoist the Serra in place. About 25 years ago I had the opportunity to see one of his tilted arcs moved. At the time, a hole had been cut to insert the cable used to lift the sculpture. Once it was is place, a little Bondo plugged the hole and a fake patina was applied to match the surrounding surface.

Patina aside, the works placed inside museums function very differently than Serra’s “public art.” Works like Tilted Arc were very confrontational into the viewer’s space, and in many cases, the public was confrontational right back. From artist David Hammons’ interventions on Serra’s work:
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~aoki/Teaching/objet_a/urine/Hammons/Hammons.htm
Or the UCLA student who use their Serra as a skateboarding surface, outside Serras wind up looking vastly different from inside Serras.

By: Christopher Knight

Christopher Knight — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:32:02 +0000

In 1998, the first time Serra’s “Torqued Ellipses” were shown (at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary), I vividly recall installation staff with hoses “watering” the giant Cor-ten behemoths many days in advance of the exhibition’s opening. (The ability to make a mess is one asset of the Geffen warehouse.) The aim was to encourage quicker “growth” of those surface crystals, in order to achieve the velvety surface. It worked like a charm.