Gravity, weight, presence. Richard Serra’s monumental sculptures are the closest thing to earth that a human artist has made (apart from those such as Goldsworthy and Smith who create “earthworks”). Three times I visited “Wake,” his piece in Seattle, each time I became more intimate. That I had been to his retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in an interval between visits to Seattle certainly had an impact. Walking within his pieces located on the first floor’s massive open space, I was reminded of being in Canyon De Chelly in New Mexico. Of course, it wasn’t about the look, it was the feel, the sense of earth’s density, the channeling of my spirit within the framework of floor, walls and open spaces.
“Wake” is not quite as magnetizing at first visitation, but it has its own gravity that slowly works upon the viewer as one abides within its orbit. However, it wasn’t until the last visit that I could get beyond the magnitude, to bond with its presence. Thus I found myself feeling the shadows, the light and the dark space, the grain of the massive, weathered steel plates. I became less a viewer of the space, even with camera in hand, and more an intimate.
Another aspect that emerged from my repeated visits was the aura of color or is that colors. What at first appeared to be distinct colored forms, upon a uniform gravely ground, revealed itself to be hues of red-brown upon variations of grey-blue gravel, against a sky which too shifted from grey with clouds, to bright blue; and then there are the stark greens of plants, especially the ginkgos located within the sculpture’s space.
While I was certainly caught by the strength of this sculpture, by its male power and phallic intimations when viewed head on, or contemplating the sperm shape of each component from a more aerial perspective, I was drawn in by the open spaces between. I have come to feel that the presentation of the sculpture in its Olympic Park setting, speaks of female—the earth, the open spaces, the invitation to be within.
The work in this portfolio is an application of my last body of work which was comprised of photographic compositions based upon my study of minimalism. In response to that study, I experimented with multi-sequencing panoramic pieces for visual effect. In this work, I have extended those previous application ideas into more abstract presentations. I have been more selective in this study, narrowing my focus to one site, one sculptural piece.
October, 2008