MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF RICHARD SERRA PRESENTED IN THREE EXHIBITION SPACES AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
June 3–September 10, 2007
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Landmark Exhibition Includes Monumental Sculptures and Newly Created Works
EXHIBITION: Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years
DATES: June 3–September 10, 2007
The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Gallery, sixth floor
Contemporary Galleries, second floor (through September 24)
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
ORGANIZATION: The exhibition is organized by Kynaston McShine, Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art, and Lynne Cooke, Curator, Dia Art Foundation.
CONTENT: One of the preeminent sculptors of our era, Richard Serra (American, b.1939) is acclaimed for his challenging and innovative work, which emphasizes process, materials, and an engagement with viewer and site. Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years is a major exhibition of 27 works that span the artist’s career—from his early experiments with materials such as rubber, neon, and lead, to monumental pieces of his late career and three new sculptures being exhibited for the first time. Works in the exhibition are drawn from museums and public institutions, private collections, and the artist.
In the early 1960s, Serra worked with unconventional, industrial materials and began to accentuate the physical properties of his work. The exhibition begins with works from the 1960s, including Belts (1966–67) and Doors (1966–67), for which he used materials such as vulcanized rubber and neon, breaking with the traditional definition of sculpture by presenting these unorthodox materials on the wall. Serra subsequently expanded his spatial and temporal approach to sculpture, focusing primarily on large-scale, site-specific works that create a dialogue with a particular architectural, urban, or landscape setting. One of the first major steel pieces by Serra, Circuit II (1972–86), now in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, consists of hot-rolled steel plates emerging from four corners of a room, providing an immersive environment as the viewer travels between the changing spaces established by the work. The equally bold Delineator (1974–75) comprises a large plate of hot-rolled steel installed on the ceiling and an equal-size plate on the floor, creating dialogues between ceiling and floor, and viewer and site.
Serra’s purely abstract works invite a distinct interaction with viewers through the experience of walking in and around the sculptures and experiencing the changing environment. Intersection II (1992-93) and Torqued Ellipse IV (1999), which are in the Museum’s collection, will be featured in The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Despite the weight of the weatherproof steel used for these works, the sculptures present themselves with a certain buoyancy.
Three new sculptures-Band (2006), Sequence (2006), and Torqued Torus Inversion (2006)-will be installed in the Museum’s second-floor Contemporary Galleries. This block-wide column-free space, with nearly 22-foot-high ceilings, features reinforced floors and special oversized entranceways that accommodate the extraordinary size and weight of these large-scale works, which weigh up to 200 tons.
The extensive and varied installation of Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years will highlight the extraordinary invention and vision of this influential artist who has radicalized and extended the definition of sculpture.
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