scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
You do need a car unless you're planning on spending the night in the field or have friends with couches in King City.
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Richard Serra's "Shift" Threatened? (King City)
- Thread starter JasonParis
- Start date
You do need a car unless you're planning on spending the night in the field or have friends with couches in King City.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Why?
Ladies Mile
Active Member
I find Serra a bit "lookitt meeeeeeeeeeeee". But I suppose there's always an exception to a general body of work. I hate the spirals with a passion. DIA Beacon is the coldest, creepiest, most malevolent museum in the continent.
I can't stand most American and European contemporary sculpture. Caro is still interesting, that's about it.
I can't stand most American and European contemporary sculpture. Caro is still interesting, that's about it.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
interchange and BuildTO documented Shift with some very fine photographs. The challenge seems to be nudging either or both of them into posting them here for everyone to enjoy.
Poor Roger Davidson, who commissioned Shift, came to a sad end. But, like the Medici he lives on.
I rather like the scale of an early work like that, the idea that a Shift or Spiral Jetty can't be contained in a gallery as a commercial entity, that a sculpture has to be trekked around to be fully appreciated. He did a similar work for the Guggenheim's around the same time, but thought it too obscure to be understood - hence Shift.
Poor Roger Davidson, who commissioned Shift, came to a sad end. But, like the Medici he lives on.
I rather like the scale of an early work like that, the idea that a Shift or Spiral Jetty can't be contained in a gallery as a commercial entity, that a sculpture has to be trekked around to be fully appreciated. He did a similar work for the Guggenheim's around the same time, but thought it too obscure to be understood - hence Shift.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
My mistake, it was Stepped Elevation commissioned by Joe Pulitzer for the grounds of his property outside St. Louis. More abstract than Shift, and demanding more of the viewer.
JasonParis
Moderator
It's actually my favourite on the continent!
Here's a pic I captured last year inside Serra's Torqued Ellipse II (1996) at Dia: Beacon.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
Ugh. It literally makes me feel physically ill.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Perhaps the open air of King City will perk you up? There's a difference between sculpture as mapping device and sculpture as large art object.
What next for Shift? It works because it is encircled by trees, because there isn't a natural horizon line, because it is isolated. It ought to be preserved as a land mass that includes all of that, stretching as far as the eye can see.
What next for Shift? It works because it is encircled by trees, because there isn't a natural horizon line, because it is isolated. It ought to be preserved as a land mass that includes all of that, stretching as far as the eye can see.
Parkdalian
Senior Member
I went up there this weekend, and I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to anyone else. It's much larger than you think it is, and more mind-bending. The work's edges keep coming back to me.
I also agree with US. It works best in the context of countryside. You should probably see it before they surround it with housing developments.
I took some photos. They are here. Here is a taste:
I also agree with US. It works best in the context of countryside. You should probably see it before they surround it with housing developments.
I took some photos. They are here. Here is a taste:
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Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Thanks for documenting it for us, Parkdalian.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Serra: "I was in Kyoto maybe 35 years ago, at the beginning of the ’70s. Looking at the temple gardens I found that they reveal themselves only by walking—nothing really happens without movement, which becomes the very basis of perception. Being in Kyoto was very different from being in Florence and looking at Piero della Francesca. Renaissance space is constructed by centralizing the focus. In the temple gardens of Kyoto the field is open, and your participation, observation, and concentration are based on movement, looking is inseparable from walking. The essential difference is not only the protracted time of looking, but the fact that you, your relationship to the objects perceived, become the subject of perception. Once I began to understand that this was a different kind of experience defined by an essentially different relation of viewer to object—in that you, the viewer, are the subject relating to an object in time and space—it shifted the focus for me. It sounds like a small thing, but I think it was primary for my development. I came back and built a piece for the Pulitzers (Pulitzer Piece, Stepped Elevation, 1971) that extended over three or four acres and was based on walking and looking in relation to a shifting horizon. That development in my work would not have occurred if I had not been in Kyoto."
Pulitzer Piece: Stepped Elevation (1970), a work comprised of three large steel plates set in almost four acres of sloping terrain and created immediately after Serra's return from the East, synthesized these various experiences. Subsequent related pieces for indoor as well as outdoor sites, in which dispersed elements again function like surrogate horizons across the field, also require that the entire terrain be traversed in order to experience the work.
LowPolygon
Senior Member
Caro? Caro? that's it--according to you? that is a truly laughable and preposterous opinion. how embarrassing for you. anyway, the only thing that is a bit "lookitt meeeeeeeeeeeee" are your posts.
LowPolygon
Senior Member
I went up there this weekend, and I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to anyone else. It's much larger than you think it is, and more mind-bending. The work's edges keep coming back to me.
I also agree with US. It works best in the context of countryside. You should probably see it before they surround it with housing developments.
I took some photos. They are here. Here is a taste:
thank you for posting those--beautiful images! the overcast sky adds a lot of atmosphere...and the piece looks wonderful
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Now ... hint ... if only interchange and BuildTO would post their excellent photographs ... Urban Toronto would have one of the most comprehensive records of Shift.
Serra tends to choose sites encircled by trees for his large outdoor pieces. Without a distant horizon line ( or surrounding buildings ) to draw the eye away, the focus is then on the site and how the sculpture explains it in consort with the person walking it.
Serra tends to choose sites encircled by trees for his large outdoor pieces. Without a distant horizon line ( or surrounding buildings ) to draw the eye away, the focus is then on the site and how the sculpture explains it in consort with the person walking it.
Parkdalian
Senior Member
Thanks for the kind words, thedeepend! If you didn't notice, I've posted more here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30221942@N06/sets/72157623759947737/
And thanks for the informative quote, US! The work does reward contemplation. I think what I appreciated most about the piece was that it is so site-specific. We usually encounter works that have either been plopped down or quarantined in their display cases. Shift does make it easier for you to "see" the surrounding countryside better.
It's a real treasure.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30221942@N06/sets/72157623759947737/
And thanks for the informative quote, US! The work does reward contemplation. I think what I appreciated most about the piece was that it is so site-specific. We usually encounter works that have either been plopped down or quarantined in their display cases. Shift does make it easier for you to "see" the surrounding countryside better.
It's a real treasure.