- Venue
- Gagosian, London until 28.02.2015
- Location
- London
Having set the bar so high recently with his Torqued Ellipses and the Gestaltkunstwerk, The Matter of Time at the Guggenheim Bilbao, the question arises as to whether Richard Serra can continually raise sculptural parameters? It is a tough challenge and the show suggests such lofty paradigms are not so easily reached.
Perhaps the least successful work in the show is Ramble, 2014, which consists of a series of large heavy slabs of steel arranged on their edges, like giant dominoes. Past related works have been installed in the landscape to mark the meridians of landscape features, as well as identical heights of contours on hilly terrain. However, because the floor is level, variation in the experience must now come from the height of the component sculptures. This feels less effective because any connection between site, body and work is diminished. Further, no challenge to the orthogonal geometry occurs, even if you can walk in and out of their alternating layout.
In contrast, London Cross, 2014, literally jams itself into the corners of a room. Its two elongated plates diagonally bisect the room to form a cross, with one plate seemingly precarious in a floating position above the other. Even though you know the top plate cannot fall, you’re nonetheless not so keen to walk beneath, and the heart quickens when you do. The apparent levitation of the top plate is dynamic and exciting, as is the dissolution of its weight. What intrigues, is how the division renders the opposing diagonal of the room inaccessible as you approach from each of the two entrances. This, with the human scale of the seven foot height plates, connects the work to both body and site.
The penultimate piece of the quartet on show is a heavyweight sarcophagus, which creates a reverberating sense of harmony through the common denominator of rectangular geometry in both sculpture and architectural host. Dead Load, 2014, consists of two forged blocks of steel that are not quiet square due to not having been rolled or extruded. The upper form is the larger of the two and its edges protrude over its smaller counterpart. The tops of each, rise and swell like a tin baked loaf of bread, which means they don’t sit flush with one another and that surprisingly, light passes between these super dense masses. Their forged compaction remains visible in their surfaces. The lower form has a silky grey mill-scale, whereas the upper has somewhat oxidised into a painterly mix of graphite and orange.
Finally, we get a glimpse of the wonders of Serra’s curvature with Backdoor Pipeline, 2010. A less recent piece that unites convex and concave sections of a torus or donut to create a curving tunnel through which one can pass through. The section of each plate appears consistent, so there’s none of the opening and closing of the space as you walk through, as there is in Serra’s torqued pieces and this is a loss. It is a cavernous sculpture, but the light at the end of the tunnel soon opens, so mystery does not abound. Its entrance is a cut-off vesica piscis and it has geological and tectonic qualities, but somehow it doesn’t hit the spot like the works in his previous Gagosian outing.
Whilst the work on display is no doubt serious, it lacks the breathtaking knockout blow delivered by some of his recent curved sculptures. But then again, when you set the bar so high, perhaps it is no surprise that you cannot lift it higher every time.
