Richard Serra: Forty Years

The Museum of Modern Art is currently exhibiting a retrospective of Richard Serra titled Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years. The work exhibited ranges from older work from the 1960’s after graduating from Yale University until recent work from 2006. Richard Serra was born in San Francisco California in 1939 and has been creating large sculptures for over forty years. His use of materials and styles has varied during this time, but began working almost strictly with steel in the 1970’s. Previous to using steel, Serra used lead because of its malleability and before that dabbled in vulcanized rubber.

His early work such as Belts (1966-67) is reminiscent of Bruce Nauman’s “dude ranch dada” with his use of neon tube lighting and vulcanized rubber formed into hanging saddle-like structures. The neon imitates the forms of the saddle shapes, but is somehow opposite as if it was meant to reflect the outside contours of a horse rider. The rubber at first appears to be large strips of leather in various earth tones. Upon reading the plaque, one discovers that the material is in fact rubber. Other early works like Equal Parallel: Guernica - Bengasi (1986) resonate with the minimalist work of Donald Judd with his use of democratic, compositional hierarchy of forms. Serra’s title however, compares the grievances and suffering of Picasso’s Guernica and the old port city of Italian colonized Libia, Bengasi; which has seen its share of empirical suffering and violence. Serra’s new work from 2006 is located on the second floor: Sequence, Band, and Torqued Torus Inversion. They are all made from weatherproof steel, but have explicit, separate sensations to each of them. Band (2006) propels the viewer to walk closely to the steel while imitating the movement of a stream. Torqued Torus Inversion (2006) is actually two large sculptures next to each other. One gives a sensation of an open area inside and the other feels like the sculpture is closing in on the viewer. The most successful piece in the show is Sequence (2006) because of how Serra wants his work to be received; “I wanted to get away from the imagistic value of an object in an empty space and instead put the focus on the experience of the entirety of the context”. Sequence accomplishes what Serra expresses in this quote and can be the most enjoyable for most visitors. If Serra had pushed the limits of the angles on the material beyond what is physically possible, the sensation would have been the opposite, uncomfortable and claustrophobic. Sequence imitates the sensation of walking through a great canyon, like one of the small trails at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was something that one would want to walk over and over again. On the other hand, it was a bit crowded and would have been more appreciable without the constant stream of people and the incessant docent tour going on in the background.

While Richard Serra is a very important artist in the 21^st century, he has not always been favored by female artists in the art community. He embodies phallic, oversized sculptures teetering on the obscene. This oversized work insinuates many negative stereotypes of male artists from his generation. He has been recognized as a great artist while female sculptors such as Petah Coyne have gone unnoticed until recently. One has to take this into consideration when attending a forty year retrospective at the MOMA, but Serra has some new work that produces the exact experience he is attempting to create between the work and the viewer. That is something very difficult for an artist to achieve, and in his own right he deserves the recognition that he gets.

Niels van Eijk- Bobbin Lace

Domestic lighting; post B. Franklin connotes a filament surrounded by sensitive, heat-conducting glass. Niels van Eijk the Dutch artist hailing from the Netherlands is renown for their woven lighting systems, which are unquestionably spectacular. The clean seemingly simple design is highly loaded with subtext.

Plait from Fiber optics and trace meal wire the Bobbin Lace Lamp is composed of five main elements. A brief dense twist of fibers extruding from the ceiling, immediately following, a conical pan of fibers assembling a circle parallel to the ground; I aptly suspect there are exactly three-hundred-sixty-five fibers protruding from the dense braid aligning so properly to said circle. Nearly four feet of expanding knot-work connect the first ring to another nearly two hundred percent its own size.

The seemingly simple design is now creating problems in which it solves; the material handling has clearly been manipulated to appear as if it is not obeying the fundamental laws of gravity. A tighter stitch towards the center creates elegant, arabesque curvature through the visual experience thus far. Obeying gravity blindly now, the lower circle lures the viewer (with striking resemblance to methods adapted by cave glowworms). Long, thin, glowing, shiny, shimmering, delicate strands hang freely from said ring; each varying slightly in length.
Other dominant variables in the work include but are not limited to the scale of the rings parallel to the floor and the negative space created by the dynamic handling of the material; the negative space fills the object with solidity through a highly sophisticated activation of the physical space it occupies. The inescapable fact that the object at hand is radiating commands the attention not only of the viewer but the space surrounding it (again a highly sophisticated method of activation, although basic is very well considered by the artist.)

The object’s radiance and gesture also transcribes a figure, actually quite strongly, incorporates a sense of gravity, scale, and a voluptuous sensory experience. The figure is quite feminine, elegant, and curvaceous. The artist elevates the subject to a dominating position, scaled noticeably larger than life-size at nine feet, ten inches (not to mention it is literally higher than the viewer). This full body portrait is complete without all of the traditional elements however, there are no appendages (i.e. arms, legs, head)!

The fixed article holding the gesture is related to a simple, traditional dress design. A strong dialectical problem however, its glowing, and it would not be anywhere near the modest adornment it claims to be at a glance. Positioned in such a manner that one cannot walk under, to look directly up into the work, it cannot be exposed. One sees what is present but cannot experience it in any other manner than what seems to be the artists intention; again emphasizing the dominance of the subject over the viewer.

The work appears the same from every angle, it emits spherical references; one cannot help but to make the connection between Bobbin Lace Lamp (keeping in mind it is emitting photons, and radiating heat) and the Sun. The artist has now accurately presented the sun at static and transformed the viewer into a revolving planetary system, again accurately, sustaining life, and obeying the act of revolutions. The connection could be further drawn to include the dialectical conversation between women and the sun, articulating the life-granting prowess of the sun in conjunction with the act of internal child development endowed by solely women. The sun is arguably the entity within our entire galaxy that we as Earth inhabitants are most dependent upon (grass is the primary food source for more animalia than any other); we as humans are arguably most directly dependent upon women if for no other reason than the action of childbirth.

The clear curatorial goals include illustrating a severe dialectic; namely one involved with a domestic craft, specifically string-work whether it be laced, tied, sewn, rubber, cut metal with an oxyacetylene torch or even fiber-optic. The defining element tying these works together is that the subjects at hand are antithetical to the traditional use and understanding of the their placement within society, culture, and our personal experiences. Clearly, this work was exceptionally chosen as it stands to be the defining work in the show; most illustrating the intent of the curator behind the grouping of the works chosen. Two major themes expressed by the curators within the catalogue are involved with light and scale, in the presented terms, there is no work in my mind that rivals Bobbin Lace Lamp in consideration of scale and lightness.

Written by Trevor Freedland