Richard Serra died Tuesday at 85, so it seemed a good time to reprise this “tribute” to him from last summer’s Opposable. Serra had a lifelong relationship to monumental industrial shapes and to shipyards. So there is some sadly witty irony that the biggest news story on the day of his death featured the forms of massive industry, mighty ships and bridges, and forces of metal transformed.
Here’s an except from an excellent and lively obit from The Guardian:
Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939 to a Russian-Jewish mother and a Spanish father, who fitted pipes in a shipyard. The young Serra was inspired by seeing a ship launched as a child and was encouraged to draw by his mother. He studied fine art at Yale alongside peers who included Chuck Close and his eventual first wife Nancy Graves – but was suspended for two weeks after pulling a prank on the visiting critic, artist Robert Rauschenberg, that involved bringing a live chicken into class.
I prefer the street art 😁
The item in the upper photo served some useful purpose before it became junk. The one in the lower photo was created as junk.