In the mid-1960s Serra began experimenting with nontraditional materials including fiberglass, neon, vulcanized rubber, and, later, lead. He combined his examination of these materials and their properties with an interest in the physical process of making sculpture. The result was a list of action verbs—"to roll, to crease, to curve"—that Serra compiled, listed on paper, and then enacted with the materials he had collected in his studio. This work, made from discarded rubber recovered from a warehouse in lower Manhattan, is a result of the rubber's unique response to the artist's enacting of the action verb "to lift." As Serra later explained, "It struck me that instead of thinking what a sculpture is going to be and how you're going to do it compositionally, what if you just enacted those verbs in relation to a material, and didn't worry about the results?"
Gallery label from 2008.