The infinitives tell us that Serra’s work of the mid to late ’60s implicates the agency of the body—of the author as a physical agent in the production of a work that foremost serves to demonstrate the principles and actions of its own making. Yet for Serra the forming properties of a given medium were of paramount significance to the work’s critical relation to the history of sculpture. x 108 in. As a materialist, Serra shares certain concerns with other artists, including Smithson and Carl Andre (who actually imagined showing his work according to a progression of media based on the order of the periodic table). Richard Serra, “Play It Again, Sam” (1970), in Richard Serra: Writings/Interviews, 8. Thomas Bernhard, Correction, trans. Process is processual—continual or forward-moving—and with the realization of process as form comes the beginning of the end. (The individual castings measured roughly four inches by four inches by twenty-five feet.) Jeffrey Weiss is a senior curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and an adjunct professor of fine arts at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. Richard Serra Thirty-five Feet of Lead Rolled Up 1968. Richard Serra Gutter Corner Splash: Night Shift, 1969/1995 Artwork Info Artwork title Gutter Corner Splash: Night Shift Artist name Richard Serra Date created 1969/1995 Classification sculpture Medium lead Dimensions 19 in. “It's all about centralizing the space … Richard Serra was born November 2, 1939, in San Francisco. In the mid-1960s Richard Serra began experimenting with nontraditional art materials like fiberglass, neon, and rubber, and also with the language involved in the physical process of making sculpture.The result was a list of action verbs—among them “to roll, to crease, to curve”—that Serra compiled, wrote on paper, and then enacted on the materials he had collected in his studio. Steve Reich, “It’s Gonna Rain” (1965; reworked in 1974), in Writings on Music, 21. Like, Endfest, the South Lake Union Block Party, the Subdued Stringband Jamboree, Vera’s Beat Back Bush screening at the Ethnic Cultural Center, Head Like a Kite headlining at the High Dive, Brian Aneurysm spinning at Krakt at Re-bar, or, … The prepositional phrases tell us that the actions and materials, in their otherwise nonfunctional, relatively pure states, inevitably articulate laws or principles of the natural world to which the agent or maker must, of course, be said to belong. Terms & Conditions, DUE PROCESS: RICHARD SERRA’S EARLY SPLASH/CAST WORKS. Despite the use of double designations, it can be said that all lead splashings are already castings regardless of whether they are pried loose or left to adhere to the wall and floor. Serra began in 1969 to be primarily concerned with the cutting, propping or stacking of lead sheets, rough timber, etc., to create structures, some very large, supported only by their own weight. rossnerimages has uploaded 21 photos to Flickr. Richard Serra, 1968. Due to risks posed by toxicity and heat during the production of a work, the artist wore heavy clothing, protective goggles, and often a respirator. One of Serra’s studio assistants at the time was the composer Philip Glass, who participated in the production of all the early splash/cast works (as well as of works demanding the rolling and folding of lead sheets). According to the artist, the much-reproduced Gianfranco Gorgoni photograph in which Serra appears to be splashing lead with an extravagant overhand throw was taken after work on his splash/cast piece (for his solo show at Castelli Warehouse in … Yet, any long-shot prospects for the preservation of a splash/cast piece notwithstanding, expendability was acceptable within the parameters of the work. Buchloh’s text includes a lengthy theorization of the splash/cast works and related activity in Serra’s early practice. THE PRODUCTION of a splash/cast work occurs in a series of basic steps. 8. Originally published in Artforum, February 1969, 22. SERRA, RICHARD (1939– ), U.S. sculptor and draftsman. By establishing a coequivalence of object and event, a splash/cast piece represents a simultaneity of scatter and containment, two material extremes. 9. To the key factors of raw material and room space we can add that of the bodily sensation of the perceiving subject or beholder, for whom the actuality of location is consolidated and redoubled rather than (as with the nonsite) distributed across time and space. The process of creation is embodied in the work: hardened lead thrown against the base of a wall when molten. The essay was written in 1968 and published in 1969 in the catalogue accompanying “Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials,” the exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art for which Serra made Casting. According to Smithson, a nonsite “just goes on constantly permuting itself into this endless doubling, so that you have the nonsite functioning as a mirror and the site functioning as a reflection.” Within the parameters of the work, “existence becomes a doubtful thing. Serra’s repeated application of molten lead over the course of a year or so represents an extended practice. In the works he made for the solo Castelli show and for Johns, Serra also used a lead plate, which he angled out from the corner of the room in order to change the configuration of the mold. The penultimate line of Correction draws these strands together in order to make a profound, if self-evident, claim, one that accounts, with respect to the protagonist and to the author, for both life and work: “Das Ende ist kein Vorgang”—the end is no process.13. Paul Hillier, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 35. 7. Later that year, the artist executed his final early work from molten lead—in Jasper Johns’s studio, a former bank building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Wake is the parks largest permanent installation. Searching the early work’s terms, however, we find that potential loss lies within the implications of its very means. ... the latter of which has been a continuing value in Serra's art. A second duality obtains with respect to the artist as producer of the work. Find an in-depth biography, exhibitions, original artworks for sale, the latest news, and sold auction prices. Inspired early in his career by modern dance—notably through his relationship with members of New York City’s influential Judson Church dancers—and Japanese Zen gardens, the artist sought to create works that engage viewers in movement, taking in his large-scale sheet-metal pieces by navigating the space around them.