The sheer physical presence and weight of Serra’s art was incredible. I was fortunate to view his work at the Tate way back in 1992, on a student trip to London. The flooring of the Duveen galleries had to be reinforced to support the two huge steel installations. It was all about presence. It made a lasting impression on me - I didn’t know a great deal about sculpture back then but it inspired a life-long interest. I used to live in Yorkshire, not far from the wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is home to a number of Moores and Hepworths, located in a beautiful countryside setting. Sculpture allows us to become the subject of the work, by how we engage with it and Serra really got that. BBC2’s ‘Imagine’ series did a great documentary on Serra some years’ ago, I hope they repeat it.
I disagree that "the artist imposed his will." It was the state, his patron, that imposed its will. The technocrat state used this object as a kind of allegory to Emptiness and Irony as a weapon used to humiliate, dehumanize and demoralize citizens.
I have some personal connection with Serra. I met his assistants while on a trip to NYC in the early 80s. I visited his studio and saw some drawings (about 5 feet square) they were working on. They rubbed conte crayons all over the paper. I have no problem with a more successful artist hiring assistants to do the more mundane work but I do have a problem with the idea that they learn nothing themselves about technique. Serra didn't even forge his own metalwork. He just called the foundry.
Serra, in my humble opinion, is an example of the artist as impresario. Certainly, not unimportant but evern essential. His persona projected the image that his patrons wanted to see in themselves. He was an ultimate "conceptual" artist in that he knew how to flatter and massage the massive egos of powerful men, not as a servile slave but as an idealized image of "the artist." This is what the technocrat investment bankers and their rather dull, empty but wealthy careers wanted to identify with, as a kind of modern romantic alter ego. In fact, that was Serra's role: the persona of the bohemian alter ego writ large.
The sheer physical presence and weight of Serra’s art was incredible. I was fortunate to view his work at the Tate way back in 1992, on a student trip to London. The flooring of the Duveen galleries had to be reinforced to support the two huge steel installations. It was all about presence. It made a lasting impression on me - I didn’t know a great deal about sculpture back then but it inspired a life-long interest. I used to live in Yorkshire, not far from the wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is home to a number of Moores and Hepworths, located in a beautiful countryside setting. Sculpture allows us to become the subject of the work, by how we engage with it and Serra really got that. BBC2’s ‘Imagine’ series did a great documentary on Serra some years’ ago, I hope they repeat it.
I disagree that "the artist imposed his will." It was the state, his patron, that imposed its will. The technocrat state used this object as a kind of allegory to Emptiness and Irony as a weapon used to humiliate, dehumanize and demoralize citizens.
I have some personal connection with Serra. I met his assistants while on a trip to NYC in the early 80s. I visited his studio and saw some drawings (about 5 feet square) they were working on. They rubbed conte crayons all over the paper. I have no problem with a more successful artist hiring assistants to do the more mundane work but I do have a problem with the idea that they learn nothing themselves about technique. Serra didn't even forge his own metalwork. He just called the foundry.
Serra, in my humble opinion, is an example of the artist as impresario. Certainly, not unimportant but evern essential. His persona projected the image that his patrons wanted to see in themselves. He was an ultimate "conceptual" artist in that he knew how to flatter and massage the massive egos of powerful men, not as a servile slave but as an idealized image of "the artist." This is what the technocrat investment bankers and their rather dull, empty but wealthy careers wanted to identify with, as a kind of modern romantic alter ego. In fact, that was Serra's role: the persona of the bohemian alter ego writ large.