With sculptures made of steel or lead, disturbingly heavy and monumental, Richard Serra became one of the most popular sculptors in the world. An obituary.
Richard Serra was at work in Hamburg for a whole week. The clean, white new wing of the art gallery from the 1990s had not yet been inaugurated when this American stood there in steelworker’s gear, throwing glowing lead scrap with a shovel into the edge between the floor and the wall, which he filled up along the entire length of the room. When such a lead wedge had cooled, Serra pulled it forward and then repeated the procedure. The result was a space through which heavy, black waves seem to roll, on the one hand menacing (Hamburg’s storm surge trauma), but at the same time undeniably poetic. And with a guarantee of a regular place, so to speak, because the furthest lead wedge is still stuck to the edge of the room to this day: Should future curators prefer to put it in storage, they would have no chance without demolishing the house.