Director, Glenn Lowry: I’m Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art. Welcome to Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, a retrospective of the work of one of the preeminent sculptors of our time.
Although Serra is best known for his monumental steel constructions, he was trained as a painter. Then, on a trip to Spain, he saw Las Meniñas by the 17th- century master Velázquez. It depicts the artist himself at his easel, turning to look out at the viewer. Serra recognized his own need to involve the viewer directly in his work. Sure that he would never be able to achieve that in two dimensions, he abandoned painting for sculpture.
Artist, Richard Serra: I very much wanted to make the viewer the subject. I was very, very convinced at that time that the flat picture plane wasn't going to do what I wanted to accomplish.
Glenn Lowry: This exhibition traces Serra’s incomparable journey away from the picture plane to art that draws the viewer into and around it, engaging us over time and in space. The show takes place in three major locations in the museum. As you walk through them, Serra himself will tell you about his work.
The sixth floor includes Serra’s smaller scale sculptures from the 1960s, along with three early steel works from the 70s and 80s. In the Garden, you’ll find two monumental steel pieces from the 1990s. And in our second floor contemporary galleries are three new works, on view for the very first time. The contemporary galleries were designed with reinforced floors and extra high ceilings to accommodate such large-scale installations. Serra’s comments on his latest works were recorded in these galleries as he moved around and through the sculptures.
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