Richard Tightened

Richard Serra (born with San Francisco in 1939) is an artist of contemporary art American. He is attached to the Minimalisme and is known for his Sculpture S in Métal. He also carried out Film S. He lives and works with New York and in Nouvelle Scotland.

After studies of English Literature, it studies the Art schools with the Université of Yale between 1961 and 1964. To finance its studies of art, he works in a Aciérie, which will have a great importance in its future work. In the same way a stay with Paris in 1965 where he works with the Academy of the large thatched cottage makes it possible him to discover and admire the work of Brancusi: “ it is there that my passage occurred towards the sculpture ”. It exposes for the first time in Rome in 1966. It goes back to New York at the end of 1966 when it saw and works.

The first works carried out by Serra are molten metal projections on the walls and are directly influenced by the abstract Expressionnisme. But very quickly it is turned towards the Minimalisme and of more ambitious works and carries out imposing sculptures in Acier corten with large plates or rollers of Stainless steel, posed balances some on the ground. Bracket with the brush on the plates a solution tightened which gives them an aspect of rust. It can thus control the color of its sculptures before stopping the Corrosion. It puts in scene the weight of the heavy plates like a dramatic showdown imposed on iron, steel, lead and thus transposes in plastic qualities the weight, the masses, gravity and their development towards the orientation, unfolding, the horizon.

The sculptures allow a new vision of a place and take part in a subtle dialog with their environment. The plays of balance, the weight of steel and the height of the plates create for the spectator - who can often circulate between those - a feeling of insecurity and smallness, moderated by the beauty of the color of rust or the prospects offered by the curved, hurled and pure lines of the plates in balance with their environment.

Tightened also works on the Cube. Solicited with the royal Monastery of Husks in Borough-in-Bresse, he will prefer not to compete with " the parfait" object; what constitutes the church to fit in inside-outside, one of the cloisters of the monastery. Echo of the tombs of the princely couple at the origin of the place, two blocks of steel corten encourage the visitor to join again with the spiritual ambulation. The cube posed on the place of the church of Chagny (Saône-et-Loire) is another example of its work. Indeed, the simple shapes of the cube answer the simplicity of architecture cistercian of the church, while the color rusts steel answers bricks of the roofs of the place. A time installed with the Park of Choisy to Paris, " Clara-Clara" , initially envisaged in 1983 for the prospect for the Tuileries disappeared. This work is representative of the sets of balances and the prospects between long steel plates. Its current site, in a closed place which limits the force of work, shows well that the sculptures of Tightened are indissociable place for which they were created.

Works of Richard Serra often caused violent reactions. It was the case in France with Chagny. The most known polemic is that caused in the Années 1980 in New York around its monumental sculpture, Tilted Arc . Following a petition of the residents, and in spite of the protests of the artist, this work was dismounted in 1989.

Quotations

“ For my part I am primarily implied in a intellectual process which finds its origin in engineering and architecture. And then this mental construction was confronted with material constructions so that it became a criticism of architecture . ”
“ the weight is for me a value, not that it is more constraining than lightness, but I more know of it about the weight about lightness (...). ”
“ My concern is always of knowing how to approach space. In an urban site, I will take account of circulation, the streets, architecture. I build a kind of disjunction, something which will locate this place and in which one will penetrate in the middle of surrounding architecture. ”

Gallery of works

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