{"data":{"id":"1202","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1202,"topgoose_id":591,"tms_id":1202,"display_name":"Richard Serra","sort_name":"Serra Richard","display_date":"1938–2024","begin_date":"1938","end_date":"2024","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThroughout a career that has spanned\nnearly half a century and ranged across\nmediums such as sculpture, drawing,\nexperimental film, video, and large-scale\npublic art, Richard Serra has insisted\nthat the elements essential to any work\nof art include the qualities inherent in\nthe materials used and the process of its\nmaking. In 1968 Serra executed numerous\nsculptures comprised of manipulated\nlead. These works realize in three\ndimensions a set of written instructions\nthe artist began compiling the previous\nyear. The list, which includes the verbs\n“to scatter, to roll, to fold, to spill” as well\nas select nouns suggesting terms “of\ncontext, of tension, of gravity,” signals both\nthe undertaking of these works and the\nconditions within which they exist.\nFor example, the sculpture \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/31751\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eProp\u003c/em\u003e \u003c/a\u003eenacts\nthe verb in its title: a large, rolled-up\nlead tube props up a square lead sheet\nplaced against the wall. \u003cem\u003eProp\u003c/em\u003e operates in\nthe specific “context” of the museum\ngallery, suspended in a state of “tension”\nas the two elements resist “gravity.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe drawings Serra has made\nsince the early 1960s, executed in charcoal,\nlithographic crayon, or oil stick applied\nto paper, linen, or cut canvas affixed directly\nto the wall, operate not as preparatory\nsketches for his sculptures but as\nindependent objects. \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1524\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eUntitled\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e,\u003c/em\u003e one of the\nfirst drawings he made using an oil\nstick (oil paint hardened with wax), features\na densely applied black triangle inscribed\nwithin the rectangle of the white paper.\nDespite the variety of pigments and\napplication techniques he has utilized in\ndrawings that vary from sketchbook-sized\nrenderings to large-scale, site-specific\ninstallations, Serra consistently works in\nblack. The color, he has argued, “is a\nproperty, not a quality,” one that allows him\nto explore the relationship of forms\nboth to and in space.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500029327","wikidata_id":"Q321245","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:44:23.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-10T07:00:34.032-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1202/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1202/exhibitions"}}}}