The first piece of art that greets visitors to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is a sculpture by Richard Serra.
Before the museum opened up the doors of its Tadao Ando building, former chief curator Michael Auping envisioned a sculpture that would create a sense of place, and Serra was the first artist who came to mind.
“I’ve known Richard since 1977. I’ve worked with him on numerous occasions, and his sculptures never let down,” Auping said. “They always attract people. … If you’re going down Camp Bowie or anywhere in the vicinity of the Cultural District, you know you’re there because you see the top of that Richard Serra.”
The California-born artist died of pneumonia in his Long Island home at 85 on March 26, but his nearly 68-foot-tall sculpture stands as a permanent reminder of the sculptor.
An abstract version of an Italian campanelle, or bell tower, “Vortex” also acts as an instrument, projecting soundwaves from those standing within its opening.
For Auping, part of the draw of Serra’s work is that his sculptures are just as much about the audience as they are about the artist himself.
“We experience our own fragility next to his sculptures, but once you get over that sense of your (fragility) versus the thousands of tons of steel that you’re standing next to then all of a sudden there’s a kind of a liberation,” Auping said. “And in our piece, you definitely feel it. … If you just put your foot to the floor, the sound just rises right up through, so there’s this sense of release as well.”
Auping has known Serra since 1977 when he first put together an exhibition of his work and the artist traveled to Berkeley to help with the installation.
By that point in his career, Serra was widely known, having done major pieces in New York and across Europe. But he didn’t act like a celebrity, Auping said.
“I didn’t have money to put him up in a hotel. But I said, ‘You can stay at our house,’ which was a small little house outside of Berkeley,” Auping recalled. “And he and his wife, Clara, slept on our sofa bed while we did that show. It endeared me to Richard.”
Serra’s material of choice, industrial steel, was inspired by one of his earliest childhood memories. His father, who was a pipefitter in a San Francisco shipyard, took Serra to see the launch of a great tanker.
At the time Serra began realizing his artistic vision, creating abstract sculptures at such a monumental scale with industrial materials was unprecedented, Auping said. He considers Serra to be one of the greatest artists of the last 100 years and said his loss is a major hit to the art world.
“I think there’s something about Richard’s work. It’s so strong and so powerful. And you never think Richard Serra is going to die. He’s just going to be standing forever,” Auping said. “But as it turns out, of course that’s not the case.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers arts and culture for the Fort Worth Report. Reach her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board. Read more about our editorial independence policyhere.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.