Curve Ball

Swirling steel curves that coil around museum floors. Vertical lead plates that stand 56-feet high, with no visible support. This is the imposing world of Richard Serra, often hailed as the world’s greatest living sculptor. The artist’s austere work has minimalism and industrialism at its core, inspired by his time spent working at a steel mill in the late 50s. Although undoubtedly a modern master, Serra has often been surrounded by controversy: in 1981, his 120-foot Tilted Arc took over Manhattan’s Federal Plaza, but vicious opposition led the piece to be dismantled and Serra inundated with death threats. At the 2006 Whitney Biennale he also managed to ruffle a few feathers after failing to produce a sculpture, instead showing a simple litho-crayon drawing of an Abu Ghraib prisoner with the caption “Stop Bush.” Recently, Serra has taken a more classical approach with a new collection of drawings—large scale, of course—in which he uses a paint-stick heated to a viscous state to produce striking monochromes with a circle as the central theme. Today, we preview one of eight new drawings to be shown at Rome’s Gagosian Gallery from April 9th.