Que "Serra" Ne Sera Pas

For today's class (Tuesday February 12th), I will be writing two journal blog posts to make up for the class I missed January 29th. This is the first.


Artists seen today: Christo and Jeanne-Claude,  Robert Smithson, Micah Lexier, Micheal Snow, Richard Serra, Eric Fischel, and Tagny Duff.

Richard Serra: Matthew Barney respects him, and it shows. In his surreal four part film "Cremaster", Barney features Serra in the chapter "The Order" as somewhat of an all-American Thor figure, shoveling vaseline in his forging suit at the Guggenheim, while the main character of Barney's film completes a puzzle surrounded by a stomping herd of punks. Manly! (...but confusing.) Point is, as a very respected American Modern sculptor of colossal influence, Barney's portrayal of Serra is somewhat appropriate. If you're comfortable with nonsense or really enjoy finding metaphors and symbols in practically anything (like me), watch "The Order" here below.

And yet, I can't not mention everything that I think is wrong and pompous about Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" (pictured below), including his response when confronted with people's negative response to the public sculpture. They found it obnoxiously obstructive to their daily activities, unaesthetic and lacking in evidence of artistic skill, and over 1300 employees petitioned against it.

That wall, forming a stripe in the middle of the Foley Federal Plaza in New York, is Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc". Erected in 1981, it was dismantled in 1989 after a controversial lawsuit.

In many ways, it reminds me of what is inherently wrong with much of Modernist City arrangement, with the city of Brasilia as its emblem: It all looks great from a plane, but Godiva forbid a person of average means actually try and live there. See this link for a french article in Le Monde on some of Brasilia's contemporary shortcomings, as designed by Modern architecture icon Oscar Niemeyer. Places are dislocated from one another, little is done to bridge sci-economic gaps, and transportation systems other than the automobile were until very recently virtually nonexistent.

In the same way, "Tiled Arc" cuts the public from its destination, is arguably an eyesore, and blocks off circulation and a view to what appears to be a wonderfully pleasant fountain. Cool of Serra to assert that not all art should be pleasant and to want to intervene and interact with the surrounding architecture, but should he really use this opportunity and platform go to war with the public? As a people-inclined closet urban planner (and after all I just wrote), I'm sure you can guess my two cents on it.

To take sides, I first asked "what" and "why". Why did the workers want it removed? What were the artist's intentions? What were both of their (apparently opposing) values, and who's do I believe in the most? As far as I can see, the workers wanted it removed because it did little to add quality to their lives, and in fact did the contrary, while the artist's intentions were relating to advancing his study and expression of modern minimalist art, and so "art for the sake of art's 'progress'". But what is progress and where are we going? Debates, controversy and publicly deemed failures such as Brasilia and the Tilted Arc keep us on our toes, offering an opportunity for us to renegotiate destination. In both cases, I am glad of the position taken since both demonstrate that "art for art's sake" or "modern for modern's sake" (not to mention for the ego) is not enough, and should first serve the populace, especially on a larger scale such as a city or plaza where many will be affected. Put that in your bucket and stir it, Serra.