[HN Gopher] Richard Serra, minimalist sculptor whose steel creat...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Richard Serra, minimalist sculptor whose steel creations awed
       viewers, has died
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 132 points
       Date   : 2024-03-27 10:46 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.artnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.artnews.com)
        
       | windowshopping wrote:
       | I for one have never heard of this artist. Sometimes I feel like
       | there's a world of contemporary art that exists entirely apart
       | from the layers of society I am exposed to.
        
         | browningstreet wrote:
         | This was a fairly prominent moment in his raise to the
         | "mainstream":
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilted_Arc
        
         | twoodfin wrote:
         | Everyone's taste is their own thing, but if you haven't exposed
         | yourself to the world of contemporary art, I'd highly recommend
         | giving it a try if only to see how it bounces off you.
         | 
         | In my experience, great modern art creates an indelible
         | impression that puts to shame all but the most thoughtful
         | artifacts of our (largely "disposable by design") popular
         | culture.
         | 
         | I distinctly recall wandering through one of Serra's oxidized
         | marvels at the Bilbao Guggenheim, just before becoming
         | mesmerized by Ragnar Kjartansson's "The Visitors"--now 9 years
         | ago.
         | 
         | It's the penetration into memory and the deeper layers of the
         | subconscious that really distinguishes the best contemporary
         | artists and works.
        
         | eichin wrote:
         | I had to dig a bit, but MIT's "Transparent Horizons" (local
         | description: "is neither") turns out to be Louise Nevelson's
         | work, and "The Great Sail" is a Calder; turns out MIT didn't
         | end up with any of Serra's work in the Big Hunk Of Metal genre.
         | (On the other hand, unlike Serra, as far as I know none of
         | Nevelson or Calder's installations actually killed anyone...)
        
         | fumeux_fume wrote:
         | I went to a public university and walked pass/thru/around one
         | of his works nearly every day on my way to classes for four
         | years. It's actually not a world as far removed as you might
         | think.
        
         | acjohnson55 wrote:
         | It's unfortunate that you're downvoted, because I can relate. I
         | knew nothing of the contemporary art world until I found myself
         | working at an art marketplace and media startup. For a few
         | years, I was immersed in it. When I left, I wrote in my
         | farewell note that I felt like I gained a whole new layer of
         | perception of my surroundings. I connected with art
         | installations. I sought out galleries and museums when
         | traveling.
         | 
         | This is how I became acquainted with Richard Serra's work. His
         | pieces are so monumental and immersive that when you encounter
         | his work elsewhere, you immediately know it, whether or not you
         | remember his name.
         | 
         | So I don't blame you for not feeling a connection. But you
         | might find it worthwhile to invest in learning about the art
         | world. If you're interested, IMO, the single best thing you can
         | do is go on the little scheduled guided tours at museums. The
         | docents (volunteer guides) are great at making the art
         | relatable.
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Serra
        
       | 0x6A75616E wrote:
       | Those are some interesting pieces. It'd be fun to create a game
       | where players need to guess between "Art Installation or Random
       | Pile of Trash"
        
         | ordu wrote:
         | One cannot guess with post-modernism. Classicism has fixed
         | standards of beauty, you can measure them looking at a piece of
         | an art and grade them. The follow ups like Renaissance art
         | tried different standards of beauty, but the idea was the same:
         | you measure level of art looking at the art. But post-modernism
         | had shown then you can make a pile of trash and it might work
         | like an art installation. The really interesting question is if
         | any pile of trash can serve as an art installation? Or maybe
         | you need a pile with some special characteristics? If so then
         | what are those characteristics?
        
           | optionalsquid wrote:
           | My first thought was artworks like those of Tim Noble and Sue
           | Webster: Literal piles of garbage in several cases, but also
           | much more than that.
           | 
           | https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/tim-noble-and-
           | su...
        
           | 082349872349872 wrote:
           | > _what are those characteristics?_
           | 
           | That's easy: does the particular pile of trash generate any
           | interesting discussion?
           | 
           | (for the category-heads: what functors are there into or out
           | of the pile of trash?)
           | 
           | EDIT: we have AI generated art; do we have AI art critics
           | yet?
        
             | cutemonster wrote:
             | > does the particular pile of trash generate any
             | interesting discussion?
             | 
             | Then, trash created by a celebrity, is art?
             | 
             | Because knowing that that person did that ugly thing,
             | generates discussions (like "wow what did s/he think!? Is
             | that the best they can do?")
        
               | 082349872349872 wrote:
               | Any straight answer I give to that would probably be long
               | and boring and drag in things like "Marianne"'s 2024
               | reproduction(fr)[0] of Bourdieu[1].
               | 
               | Here's a shorter (albeit catechistic) version: would you
               | count https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39873907 as an
               | interesting comment?
               | 
               | How does Queen Bey's cover in that comment compare to
               | David's Napoleon[2]?
               | 
               | How does Queen Liz' picture from that comment compare to
               | her younger self[3]? to the Beyonce cover? to
               | Gainsborough's Mr. & Mrs. Andrews[4]?
               | 
               | From the standpoint of the graphic arts[5], do either of
               | these queens count as artists? or as celebrities?
               | 
               | In which quadrant of [0] do celebrity news tabs belong?
               | "Marianne"? (with what accuracy can we guess a website's
               | target quadrant by its immediate visual impression?)
               | 
               | What other questions might we ask?
               | 
               | [0] https://panorama-
               | pv5.immanens.com/api/document/3229/1399/xml... [6]
               | 
               | (in french; for related english content:
               | https://dynomight.net/img/class/social%20positions.jpg
               | 
               | explained in: https://dynomight.net/class/ )
               | 
               | [1] https://dynomight.net/bourdieu/
               | 
               | [2]
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps
               | 
               | [3] https://photos.airmail.news/uwcwylyjv86yd02gja659nfc6
               | 9sj-c12...
               | 
               | [4] https://www.ways-of-seeing.com/images/ch5_21.jpg
               | 
               | [5] the Muses all seem to be patrons of the
               | literary/musical arts; are there equivalents for the
               | visual arts? WTF is Urania ("astronomy & astrology")
               | doing in that group?
               | 
               | [6] a related graphic: https://dubasque.org/wp-
               | content/uploads/2024/01/image_0006_0...
               | 
               | suggests that X ne Twitter has poor demographics in the
               | hexagon. Are they better among anglophones than
               | francophones?
               | 
               | (Louis Vuitton, Zara, pop music, and Marvel all fall
               | exactly on the cultural centreline; do we suppose they
               | were lucky, or that they poll --and position-- often?)
        
               | kjellsbells wrote:
               | I wondered when Jon Berger would show up. His analysis of
               | the Gainsborough picture was very eye opening to those
               | viewers raised on more traditional analysis such as that
               | of Kenneth Clark.
               | 
               | Along the same vein, Francis Frascina's commentary on
               | Guernica (see youtube) is also enlightening. Both Berger
               | and Frascina are very much of their time (vaguely marxist
               | veneer of the 1970s?) but the beauty of these works is
               | that they inspire conversation in succeeding generations.
        
               | 082349872349872 wrote:
               | I see a conversation from Berger (1972) with preceding
               | generations:
               | 
               | (Ep 1 18:40) > _...as soon as the meaning of the painting
               | becomes transmittable, this meaning is liable to be
               | manipulated and transformed._
               | 
               | Hesse's _The Glass Bead Game_ is from 1943, and I believe
               | the  "game" played in Castalia was meant to be exactly
               | this sort of manipulation and transformation; creating
               | new work by combining and transforming old, kind of like
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millefiori , but for all
               | sorts of work, not just glass.
               | 
               | EDIT: heh, at 19:44 Berger gets around to the
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect (without,
               | however, mentioning Kuleshov) ... and at the close of the
               | programme he even cites a reference*! (on broadcast TV?
               | what kind of marvel is this?)
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Ag
               | e_of_...
        
       | aabhay wrote:
       | Sad to see the other comments are so contemptuous. When you see
       | one of his pieces in person, you will gain an immediate
       | appreciation for what he was trying to do. Essentially Richard
       | Serra's iron sculptures were playing with the architecture of the
       | spaces they were placed in. Turning an open plaza into a twisty
       | maze and so forth. As far as art is concerned, one of my favorite
       | people, and I'm glad he did what he did.
        
         | llm_trw wrote:
         | >Sad to see the other comments are so contemptuous.
         | 
         | There are literally no comments in this thread which are
         | negative.
         | 
         | I have no idea why those who control the art world feel the
         | need to present themselves as marginalized.
        
           | aabhay wrote:
           | Yes. I pull the strings on the art world and have complete
           | control over everything but this comment thread.
        
           | paganel wrote:
           | Not contemptuous , but this guy's "art" is the type of thing
           | that has helped alienate the common man and drove him into
           | whichever political hands rejected these neoliberal-inspired
           | creations.
           | 
           | Also, props to Serra for doing some "art" stuff for Qatar in
           | the 2010s, the money was probably very good (which brings me
           | to my above point).
        
             | outop wrote:
             | Pretty sure the existence of art made from large pieces of
             | steel isn't the thing that "helped alienate the common
             | man".
        
               | paganel wrote:
               | Alienating art has been a staple of many past social
               | revolutions, the "made up of steel" thing (like in this
               | case) is just a secondary issue.
               | 
               | But I get this guy's appeal and I also get why his
               | audience wouldn't want to see it that way, it is what is,
               | nothing that the two of us can do about it other than
               | trying to talk over an over-increasing socio-economic
               | wall.
        
               | outop wrote:
               | Can you name some of these social revolutions? I'm
               | genuinely not sure what you are referring to.
        
         | timr wrote:
         | Yes, Clara-Clara (formerly installed at Jardin des Tuileries in
         | Paris) was the first time I really "got" Serra -- at least,
         | beyond the scale and imposition of the things. That sculpture
         | was almost natural for the space, and people interacted with it
         | by touching it, leaving white handprints from the soil across
         | the surface, and creating a sort of ghostly effect of all the
         | people who had been there. [1]
         | 
         | Too many Serra sculptures are just sort of treated as plop art,
         | but if you see his stuff at Storm King or Dia Beacon or the
         | site-specific installations, it makes a lot more sense.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://alltheartiveeverseen.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/serra-...
        
         | dang wrote:
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | There isn't a single contemptuous comment. Did you write this
         | in anticipation of them?
        
           | aabhay wrote:
           | Don't be so cynical. I was like the third person to comment
           | on this post and both existing comments were negative. One
           | asking about a game telling the difference between art or
           | trash, etc.
        
             | bowsamic wrote:
             | I don't think that comment was negative, it starts by
             | saying they are interesting. I've seen a lot of art that
             | purposefully juxtaposes itself with trash.
        
             | aaronbrethorst wrote:
             | An early work of Serra's involved him literally tossing
             | molten lead at a wall where it would harden into a pile of
             | waste on the floor. Art or trash indeed.
             | https://www.artforum.com/features/due-process-richard-
             | serras...
        
             | acjohnson55 wrote:
             | Well maybe give it a few minutes before judging the
             | temperature of the conversation? At this point, it seems
             | like there's a lot of appreciation.
        
         | smokel wrote:
         | _> When you see one of his pieces in person, you will gain an
         | immediate appreciation for what he was trying to do._
         | 
         | No, sorry. It just doesn't work for me. Tastes differ, I guess.
         | 
         | I found most of his works to be typical of "put something big
         | in a gallery and it looks amazing". Also, I feel annoyed by
         | people who claim so much space. Not to say that his work is bad
         | or useless -- I just don't like it.
         | 
         | Perhaps if I read more about his intentions I might change my
         | mind. But the appreciation sure isn't immediate for me.
        
           | kjellsbells wrote:
           | I hope you dont feel forced to like it in order to this of
           | yourself as an art lover. That would be wrong. No one likes
           | everything in a gallery after all.
           | 
           | Re Serra, one of the problems I have with it is that
           | displaying a gigantic work in the confines of a gallery just
           | feels, well, confining. You already know the boundaries of
           | the space because you can see the walls, the ceiling, the
           | giftshop, etc.
           | 
           | If the aim is to induce a sense of awe, or perhaps unease, at
           | the mass of the work, or its size, rather like you might feel
           | at an old site like Stonehenge, that effect is lost in the
           | gallery.
           | 
           | In fact there is a general problem with how we display art
           | that is not easily soluble. Much of what is in museums and
           | galleries today was created and sold for a single
           | buyer/viewer. Such works reward close inspection over many
           | years by the owner. Maybe one year you see something you
           | never saw before. That effect is totally lost in a gallery.
        
         | Daub wrote:
         | I agree that too much art commentary is made without actually
         | seeing the goddam artwork. As an art student I was guilty of
         | this. I remember being very contemptuous of Edward Kienholz's
         | work. These installation pieces looked very cheesy in photos,
         | but when I saw one in real life
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beanery) I was blown away.
        
           | ryandamm wrote:
           | I had the same reaction to Rothko. Doesn't make sense until
           | you experience it in person; the color and scale creates a
           | totally different experience than what I was able to imagine
           | looking at photos.
        
       | frostburg wrote:
       | My favourite of his pieces is Open Field Vertical Elevations,
       | which incidentally was erected in the fields outside the
       | residence of a collector who also recently passed, near where I
       | live in the middle of nowhere, Tuscany.
       | 
       | In person, viewed while immersed in its necessary context of
       | landscape, it is visually powerful and moving. It is also a link
       | to the greater world outside our narrow vales and to a cultural
       | history of patronage of the arts.
       | 
       | I understand that the attitudes here are mostly skeptical of
       | contemporary art, but it really goes too far in most cases. Serra
       | wasn't Hirst.
        
       | failrate wrote:
       | These sculptures are awesome. Literally. Walking next to one is a
       | literally awe inspiring experience. They just seem so big and
       | imposing standing next to one.
        
         | ok_dad wrote:
         | It makes sense he grew up in a shipyard town, big ships are
         | imposing like his art. I'm not sure it was nearly formative,
         | but I feel like he must have been going for something similar
         | to walking through a shipyard, with all of the large ships but
         | also the buildings and equipment and cargo are huge!
        
       | ajmurmann wrote:
       | The Guggenheim museum in Bilbao has an entire wing dedicated to a
       | giant Richard Serra installation that's one with the
       | architectural space it's in. For anyone visiting the Basque
       | country, I cannot recommend visiting the exhibit strongly enough.
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | Saw it once, it was incredible. I didn't really know what it
         | was when I first walked into the room and kind of got sucked
         | into it.
        
           | Daub wrote:
           | This is a simple yet effective description of the unmediated
           | art experience. At the end of the day, art is about standing-
           | in-front-of, and experiencing, THINGS.
        
         | relativeadv wrote:
         | And if Spain is too far for some American southerners, there
         | are a couple of Serra pieces in the Chattanooga, TN sculpture
         | park. I was surprised to run into them while I lived there.
        
       | gyomu wrote:
       | The installation he had at SFMoMa, in the side entrance, was
       | really great. The space now just feels naked without it.
        
       | augustocallejas wrote:
       | In 2002, Caltech students rejected one of his pieces, which would
       | have been installed on the Beckman Lawn:
       | 
       | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-may-22-me-calte...
       | 
       | https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/1826/1/2002_05_20_103...
        
       | stock_toaster wrote:
       | > For a week, I considered chartreuse seriously.
        
       | huytersd wrote:
       | These are so large. How do you even go about bending such large
       | sheets of steel in unconventional ways.
        
         | tedd4u wrote:
         | Big machines:                   "... we use very large machines
         | first used to build battleships          in the Second World
         | War. People really hadn't explored the          potential for
         | what steel could be in terms of its variabilities          and
         | elasticity. It's only recently been explored by a few people."
         | 
         | From: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/236/3052
        
       | vonnik wrote:
       | SF native. Brother of defense attorney Tony Serra who defended
       | Shrimp Boy and the Ghost Ship guy.
       | 
       | Agree with comment below that his works are best appreciated by
       | walking in their shadow.
        
         | asveikau wrote:
         | The old James Woods film _True believer_ is based on Tony
         | Serra.
        
       | gdubs wrote:
       | Serra's work is just one of those things that completely changed
       | my world. I don't know how old I was, but walking through his
       | pieces made me realize that art could be larger than life. Truly
       | a giant of the 20th century.
        
       | coisasdavida wrote:
       | My visit to his stuff in Bilbao was amazing.
        
       | ignormies wrote:
       | Stumbled upon 'Fulcrum' yesterday near Liverpool Station in
       | London without knowing anything about it.
       | 
       | Incredibly impressive piece of art that made me stop and admire
       | it for a few minutes. Watching the relatively minuscule people
       | shuffle by at the base of the _enormous_ sheets of twisted steel
       | was fascinating.
       | 
       | Yesterday I knew nothing about the artist but the moment I saw
       | this article title I thought, "wait that piece had to have been
       | this guy." I'm going to have to seek out more of his work.
        
         | Oarch wrote:
         | It's reasonably hidden, lots of redevelopment work going on
         | around that sculpture at the moment. Hopefully the setting
         | improved a bit.
        
       | Daub wrote:
       | No one here has talked about the number of lives that Serra's
       | work has claimed/ruined. So far: one death and two serious
       | injuries. Details here:
       | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2018/aug/...
       | 
       | From this link:
       | 
       | > Richard Serra's steel sculptures feel the most dangerous of
       | all. They tower over you, surround you, menace you. The danger is
       | not illusory. Serra's rolled steel is dangerous, especially for
       | workers who have to install it. In 1971, a contractor called
       | Raymond Johnson was killed during the installation of a Serra
       | sculpture. In 1988, two workers were seriously injured while
       | deinstalling one of his pieces.
       | 
       | We were taught to hate his work at school. Big, heavy,
       | industrial... 'big willy' art I remember one lecturer calling it.
       | However, I always liked his work, largely as a result of seeing
       | it in person at the Tate Modern. I could feel the literal eight
       | of his work as I walked through it: heavy sheets of metal
       | balanced against each other. Peril was part of the price of
       | admission.
       | 
       | The death/injuries victims were all art technicians: people
       | tasked with installing the work. I used to work with such people,
       | and their job is a fascinating one. I remember helping to scan a
       | building with ground scanning radar in order to determine if it
       | was strong enough to hold Anselm Kiefer's library of huge lead
       | books: https://www.wikiart.org/en/anselm-kiefer/the-high-
       | priestess-...
       | 
       | It took a team of four men and a forklift truck just to turn the
       | pages of these books.
        
         | CPLX wrote:
         | I'm not sure it's fair to describe something as "dangerous" and
         | as having "killed" people when you're talking about technicians
         | hired to safely move or install something.
         | 
         | By that definition pretty much any object is "dangerous."
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | Right, in order to fairly describe this man's artworks as any
           | more dangerous than average based on their entire functional
           | lifecycle we'd need to evaluate, for example, how many people
           | were killed while producing the marble blocks used by
           | sculptors such as Michaelangelo, or how many people died as a
           | side effect of exposure to toxic compounds (e.g. cinnabar
           | (red), cobalt (blue), lead (white)) while producing pigments
           | for painters such as Rembrandt.
        
             | Daub wrote:
             | There is a clear difference between the dangers incurred by
             | an artist (e.g. an artist using toxic pigments) and an
             | artist endangering their employees (models, assistants,
             | etc).
             | 
             | Similarly, there is a difference between the dangers
             | incurred by an artist and the dangers incurred by anyone
             | deeper into the supply-line (e.g. in the mining of toxic
             | compounds to be used in paint/pigment).
             | 
             | The artist who taught me sculpture died as a direct result
             | of employing asbestos in his work. He was an art student
             | when he did so, and the information that could have saved
             | his life was not then public knowledge.
             | 
             | One of the hallmarks of Serra's work is precisely danger.
             | Stand in person inside of his work and tell me otherwise.
             | This was a knowing gamble on his behalf.
        
           | Daub wrote:
           | > By that definition pretty much any object is "dangerous."
           | 
           | Fair point.
           | 
           | However, like any employer an artist has a responsibly
           | towards their employees. I hate to say this, but there is an
           | inevitable credibility attached to art artist's work that
           | results in an employee's death.
           | 
           | https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506
           | 
           | The painting Ophelia by Millais required a model sit in a
           | bath of water for extended periods of time. From the article:
           | 
           | > The model, Elizabeth Siddal, a favourite of the Pre-
           | Raphaelites who later married Rossetti, was required to pose
           | over a four month period in a bath full of water kept warm by
           | lamps underneath. The lamps went out on one occasion, causing
           | her to catch a severe cold. Her father threatened the artist
           | with legal action until he agreed to pay the doctor's bills.
           | 
           | At art school, this was presented to us as a romantic feature
           | of the work, rather that the outrageous abandonment of an
           | artist's responsibly towards their workforce.
        
             | robertlagrant wrote:
             | > However, like any employer an artist has a responsibly
             | towards their employees.
             | 
             | Were they his employees?
        
               | Daub wrote:
               | Hard to say, but the likelihood is that they were. Most
               | 'blue chip' artists employ technicians that travel around
               | the world to install and repair their work. This may be
               | mediated through their dealer.
               | 
               | I mention repair as a lot of contemporary art requires
               | ongoing maintain, Julian Schnabel's employs full-time a
               | team who trot around the globe repairing his famous plate
               | portraits.
               | 
               | Regardless, I would feel ethically responsible for anyone
               | who installs my work. FYI: most exhibitions require that
               | an artist define 'installation instructions'.
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | I'm more speaking concretely than theoretically: do we
               | know he employed them? Even if an artist defines
               | instructions, that doesn't mean that they'll be followed.
        
         | MattRix wrote:
         | I'm guessing nobody else brought it up because the original
         | article already mentioned this fact.
        
           | Daub wrote:
           | Woops. My bad. However, I believe the details I raise remain
           | generally valid.
        
         | hash872 wrote:
         | I'm not a huge fan of this kind of safetyism argument. Human
         | beings have been injured or killed by most fields of human
         | endeavor, it's certainly unfortunate but unless Richard Serra
         | specifically was engaged in some kind of negligence I don't see
         | how that's really a critique. In the last couple hundred years
         | some person somewhere has variously been killed by swimming
         | pools, kitchens, sidewalks, windows, bicycles, etc. How many
         | people have fallen off say a roof in the last century? Imagine
         | if you said 'no one is talking about the number of lives cut
         | short by roofs'. A 0% injury/death rate is not really possible
        
         | fumeux_fume wrote:
         | The man just died and we're remembering what his art meant to
         | us. Why would you expect a lengthy discussion on a handful of
         | accidents his artworks caused? Read the room please.
        
         | 4death4 wrote:
         | How many people die installing roofs above art galleries or
         | felling trees for the paper upon which art is made?
         | 
         | It's also weird that you were taught to hate something. Seems
         | like a waste of time.
        
           | kouru225 wrote:
           | Exactly. It's always so crazy to me how there's such a double
           | standard when it comes to art. Millions of people spend their
           | entire lives in factories doing the same stitch over and over
           | again, but if Kubrick makes Shelley Duvall do the same scene
           | 100 times it's abuse. How many people die in the shipping
           | industry for example and no one calls them out
        
       | ripe wrote:
       | Love the article. I knew nothing about this artist, but after
       | reading this, I am curious to see his works. Gives lots of
       | details including pictures.
       | 
       | The article does talk about the hazards of installing these giant
       | steel sculptures and that workers have died and been injured.
        
       | da-bacon wrote:
       | My favorite Serra story is when he was hired to build a sculpture
       | by Caltech. In typical fashion he decided he wanted to build a
       | giant wall across one of the few remaining wide open green spaces
       | on campus, the lawn adjacent to Beckman. In a nod to Caltech he
       | called it "Vectors".
       | 
       | The students were not happy. This was great lawn to just lay out,
       | play frisbee, etc. A few days after this blew up in the student
       | news, a large wall showed up right in front of the main coffee
       | shop, the Red Door. That was a nice space with beautiful trees
       | and tables (ah, the Southern California weather). The wall was
       | right in the middle of this and blocked off the thoroughfare. The
       | wall was called "Eigenvectors" and that word was painted on it,
       | along with a ton of other linear algebra formulas. I remember
       | walking by and going "holy shit is that the Moore-Penrose
       | inverse?!" In the end the students won, the sculpture was never
       | built.
        
         | Daub wrote:
         | Thanks for the story,.
         | 
         | I love Serra's work, but I'm glad this piece was never built.
         | For artists of his generation, the thoughts/feelings of the Hoi
         | polloi were of little regard. A space was their stage, dam the
         | little people.
        
           | cutemonster wrote:
           | Seems he got to build one eigenvector at least - the last
           | photo in the article, the Tilted Arc. Across a public square,
           | everyone needs to walk around the eigenvector. I had a
           | reaction similar to that of the students
           | 
           | But beautiful small figures :-)
        
         | salomon812 wrote:
         | I was a undergrad senior at Caltech during that time, and as
         | luck would have it, I was taking an art history course. Caltech
         | humanities courses tended to have visiting professors that
         | would come for a single night a week. I mentioned to my
         | professor that I did not think Serra's piece should be
         | considered art and it turned into a debate that spanned several
         | weeks. At first, I was worried I was taking a harsh stance but
         | the professor was so excited that Caltech students took an
         | interest in art and we happily debated for a while. I told her
         | I hated Serra's Tilted Arc but conceded I did like his Sea
         | Level and The Matter of Time.
         | 
         | While I was not one of the students that put up Eigenvectors, I
         | would have gladly helped if I realized they were doing it. I
         | argued to my professor that Eigenvectors was art because it
         | stood for something and my professor could not have been
         | happier about the situation.
         | 
         | Another protest piece that occurred was dumping a bunch of
         | indoor and outdoor furniture on the very lawn that was going to
         | host Vectors and then placing a sign on it that read something
         | along the lines of "Invoice: Qty 1 art installation. Price:
         | $1,000,000" in protest of the amount Caltech was going to pay
         | Serra.
         | 
         | If I recall, while the students won, Caltech never admitted it
         | was due to the outcry. The official statement argued that a
         | geological report of the area deemed it unsuitable for such a
         | heavy art piece.
         | 
         | I just looked online and it looks like they ripped up the
         | entire lawn in a last few years to create another building and
         | parking lot.
        
       | erickhill wrote:
       | I've always admired his large outdoor work "Wake" at the Olympic
       | Sculpture Park in Seattle. I have very fond memories of my kids
       | peeking around the massive, wave-like walls of steel.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-03-30 23:01 UTC)