Space & Materiality in Richard Serra & Sarah Sze
Richard Serra (b. 1938) and Sarah Sze (b. 1969) are American artists working in the intersection between painting, sculpture, and architecture. They are both interested in how a manipulation of objects in space and their elements may alter our perception not just of our experience of the specific work of art, but our minds at large.
This text will look at the sculptural work of these two artists and analyse some of their similarities as well as differences, primarily in relation to spatial elements of scale and movement, as well as materiality. It will do so by analysing one specific sculpture of each artist that is on some level representative of a larger body of their work — Richard Serra’s Intersection II from 1993 and Sarah Sze’s 360 (Portable Planetarium) from 2010 — attempting to address both what brings these artists together, and subsequently, what keeps them apart.
Richard Serra
“What interests me is the opportunity for all of us to become something different from what we are, by constructing spaces that contribute something to the experience of who we are.” [1]
Richard Serra is an American artist born 1938 in San Francisco, working out of New York. He studied English literature at University of California and painting at Yale University, and he held his first solo exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum in California in 1970. [2]
Serra is primarily known for his large — scale and site — specific sculptures in which he plays with the spectator’s perception of scale, proportion, and space. [3] In addition to his sculptural work he is also known for his black — and — white paint stick drawings, them too manifesting similar ideas of time, space, process, and materiality that are characteristic of his work at large. [4]
Sarah Sze
“That idea of…marking space: how to take an object and use it to… colonise a place, to change everything around it…and to see how slight that move can be yet suddenly it shifts our relationships to everything around it.” [5]
Sarah Sze is an American artist born 1969 in Boston, working out of her studio in New York City. She studied architecture and painting at Yale University and earned her MFA at the School of Visual Arts. She held her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in Illinois in 1999. [6]
Sze is known primarily for her large — scale and immersive sculptures that challenge the traditional view of sculpture as something static and immobile — instead employing concepts such as fragility, movement, transience, and the fleetingness of time. In addition to her sculptures she also works with painting where she employs similar ideas — with the painting acting as a portal both into space, as well as into our mind (and in turn, our experience of ourselves). Her work questions how objects can ascribe meaning to the spaces we inhabit, and in turn, leave an imprint upon our memory. [7]
(Though the paintings of both Serra and Sze are very interesting — given the word count limitations on this essay, this text shall for the moment only analyse the sculptural works of them both.)
Space
Serra and Sze both work in the interplay of sculpture and architecture and are both interested in how a manipulation of objects in space may alter our experience not just of our perception of that given space, but our own minds inside of that space — and, in turn, how this change in perception may effect who we are at large.
Richard Serra’s Intersection II from 1993 is part of an early series of works in which the artist balances large — scale and rusty metal slabs in precise formations — inviting the spectator to enter the spaces in between them (and in so doing, exerting their physical pressure upon them). [9]
This pressure is rooted in not just their scale, but their formation, the angle which they are placed, and the precise logic of their arrangement. Intersection II is one such piece and consists of four curved metal slabs placed facing each other, forming an ellipse at their center. [10]
According to Serra, these earlier works of his are primarily about the spectator herself whose perception of the piece is reliant upon her movement through it — evoking a different experience depending on her own notion of memory and time, and ultimately — her own sense of self. [11]
Sarah Sze’s 360 (Portable Planetarium) from 2010 is a mixed media sculpture consisting of wood, paper, string, jeans, rocks, as well as a myriad of other objects. It’s shaped like a large sphere which the spectator may enter into and is in the artist’s own words about “the attempt and impossibility of imagining the cosmos” and the subsequent “imponderability of scale”. [13]
Similar to Serra’s Intersection II, Sze’s 360 (Portable Planetarium) envelops you as you approach — it has an exterior and an interior (though in Sze’s case, the border between these two is much less pronounced) and as you move through the piece it shifts, transforms, and reveals novel elements and sensations. It is, in other words, a kind of portal (both physical and mental) which the spectator may enter and inhabit — the experience of which is made possible in large part by the interplay of scales and the spectator’s movement through the piece.
Materiality
As we have seen, the work of Serra and Sze share many similarities, not least in the emphasis on scale and movement and the subsequent effect this may have both on the spectator’s direct experience of the piece itself, as well as their perception of themselves in the larger scheme their life in relation to time, memory, and the cosmos. Outwardly, however, the work of Serra and Sze may indeed appear quite different — perhaps most evident in their very different choice of material.
Serra confines himself to one material: rusty steel slabs, which he industrially manipulates into his desired shape and formation. They are factory — made, heavy, and durable. Sze on the other hand does not confine herself to one material, but uses many different small — scale ones: including wood, toothpicks, string and Q — tips, which she then reconfigures into her desired configuration. As opposed to Serra, Sze’s materials are man — made, light, fragile, and temporary.
Despite this difference, their respective work nevertheless manage to invoke a largely similar experience — that is, a sense of grandness and wonder, and a reflection of oneself in relation to memory and time.
Hierarchy
One implication that may be drawn from this has to do with the hierarchy of sculptural elements, and the way we organise these. Sculptural elements are the features that make up not just the sculptural object itself, but also the object in relation to our experience of it.
Naturally, when speaking of large — scale sculpture, these elements largely overlap with elements of architecture of a phenomenological (rather than a purely functional or symbolic) kind. One set of these elements are defined by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor — consisting of (though are not limited to): scale, light, border, movement, surrounding, integration, materiality, sound, temperature, form, and coherence. [14]
All of these elements thus play a role in determining one’s experience of a sculptural (or architectural) work of art, though perhaps some of them (scale and movement included) play a larger role than others (such as materiality and form). One may, in other words, to some extent place these elements in a hierarchy: with scale and movement being primary elements, and form and materiality being secondary ones. This distinction may be a useful one for the artist in the creation of her work — though one must, as always, be wary of the possible constriction that classifications such as these may bring upon the work.
Conclusion
This text has looked at the work of American artists Richard Serra and Sarah Sze. It analysed the sculptural elements of scale and movement that bring their work together, as well as the choice of materiality that is a driving force of their separateness.
It then reflected upon sculptural elements at large and their classification and hierarchy, arguing that some of these elements may play a larger role than others in the creation of the kind of large — scale sculpture created by Richard Serra and Sarah Sze.
Maja Malmcrona is an artist from Sweden based in Zurich, Switzerland. She works primarily in drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Bibliography
Artspace. Sarah Sze on Why She Had to Invent a New Way of Making Sculpture. 4 May 2016, www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/sarah-sze-okwui- enwezor-interview-53754.
Artsy. Richard Serra. www.artsy.net/artist/richard-serra.
Brooklyn Rail. Phong Bui with Sarah Sze. October 2010. brooklynrail.org/2010/10/
art/phong-bui-with-sarah-sze
David Zwirner. Richard Serra Drawings. www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2018/ richard-serra-drawings.
Frieze. Sarah Sze. www.frieze.com/article/sarah-sze-0.
Gagosian. Richard Serra. 12 Apr. 2018, gagosian.com/artists/richard-serra/.
Gagosian. Sarah Sze. 7 Sept. 2018, gagosian.com/artists/sarah-sze/.
Image Journal. Gravity and Grace: The Art of Richard Serra. 25 Aug. 2016,
imagejournal.org/article/gravity-and-grace/.
Serra, Richard. Intersection II. Weatherproof steel, four identical conical sections. Two sections 400 x 1570 cm along the chord x 5,4 cm thick. 1993.
Sze, Sarah. 360 (Portable Planetarium). Mixed media, wood, paper, string, jeans, rocks. 411 x 345 x 470 cm. 2010.
The Museum of Modern Art. MoMA Highlights. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. 1999. p. 341.
The Museum of Modern Art. Richard Serra — Intersection II. 1992–93. MoMA. www.moma.org/collection/works/81514.
Victoria Miro. Sarah Sze. www.victoria-miro.com/artists/33-sarah-sze/.
Zumthor, Peter. Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects. 2006.
