Serra, Richard (1938-2024), was an American sculptor known for his huge outdoor works. Serra designed many of his large works for specific sites to fit into their architectural, landscape, or urban setting. Serra’s style made him a leading member of the Minimalism movement that originated in the United States during the 1960’s.
Serra typically used industrial materials in his works. For example, he created Tilted Arc (1981) out of steel. His series called Torqued Ellipses (1996-1999) consists of huge steel plates that are curved and bent to carve out private spaces from the large public sites where they were erected. The gigantic size of Serra’s sculptures is represented by Charlie Brown (1999), in the courtyard of a San Francisco office building. The steel sculpture stands 60 feet (18 meters) high. Equal (2015) is a 320-ton (290-metric-ton) sculpture composed of four pairs of precisely forged steel blocks, stacked and arranged in a square.
In 1981, Serra installed Tilted Arc, an arc of steel about 11 feet 6 inches (3.5 meters) high, in the Federal Plaza in New York City. The work created national controversy. Workers in the buildings surrounding the plaza complained that the sculpture obstructed passage through the plaza. A public hearing in 1985 voted to move the work. Serra insisted Tilted Arc was created for that site and could not be placed anywhere else. On March 15, 1989, federal workers dismantled the sculpture and it was taken away for scrap.
Serra was born on Nov. 2, 1938, in San Francisco. During the early 1960’s, he worked in steel mills, which exposed him to the industrial materials he later used in his sculptures. In 1964, Serra received both a bachelor of fine arts degree and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University. He died on March 26, 2024.
