A Richard Serra sculpture is elemental and mythic. One feels the weight as ones mortality.
The curve is a mythic shape of the Illiad and a shadow of the Greek form of war. There is a blackness like Achilles "black look." The sculpture slices through space like the boat on the sea of Oddyseus. They are a metaphor for the weight of pure form heightened by the memory of-- echoing, to some origin.
The weight is like a history containing all shape and weight, a color of memory that doesn't get in the way of remembering.
It is like a Pollock whose form takes one to the stars. A Keifer that wonders of that same depth. A Newman that hails that same, vertical moment of eternity.
They are scary and one wants to get out of the way. They are a part of our best art and they leave so much behind.
The photos are from Ft Worth Museum of Modern Art, Texas and Pulitzer Foundation, St Louis.
