Richard Serra Quotes

Quotes about:

• I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.

  Richard Serra

  Space, Sculpture, Use

  Kynaston McShine, Richard Serra, Lynne Cooke, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (2007). “Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years”, p.77, The Museum of Modern Art

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• 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.

  Richard Serra

  Opportunity, Space, Different

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• To see is to think, and to think is to see.

  Richard Serra

  Thinking

  YouTube Channel "KunstSpektrum"/"Richard Serra - Talk with Charlie Rose (2001)", www.youtube.com. May 20, 2011.

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• Everything we choose in life for its lightness soon reveals its unbearable weight.

  Richard Serra

  Weight, Unbearable, Lightness

  Richard Serra (1994). “Writings/Interviews”, p.185, University of Chicago Press

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• Play is a necessary ingredient in art because there is a kind of wonder that goes on when you play. You're directing your activity toward a conclusion that isn't prescribed by a particular method.

  Richard Serra

  Art, Play, Ingredients

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• Your eye is a muscle, you have to keep it in shape and the more you draw, the more you see.

  Richard Serra

  Eye, Shapes, Muscles

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• Art for the most part, is about concentration, solitude and determination. It's really not about other people's needs and assumptions. I'm not interested in the notion that art serves something. Art is useless, not useful.

  Richard Serra

  Determination, Art, People

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• The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes.

  Richard Serra

  Moving, Perception, Expansion

  Richard Serra, William Diamond (1985). “In the matter of a public hearing on the "Tilted arc" outdoor sculpture located in front plaza of Jacob Javits Federal Office Building: held at the Ceremonial Room, International Trade Court, One Federal Plaza, New York, New York ... : before: William Diamond, ... [et al.].”

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• Time and movement became really crucial to how I deal with what I deal with - not only sight and boundary, but how one walks through a piece, and what one feels and registers in terms of one's own body in relation to another body.

  Richard Serra

  Sight, Pieces, Movement

  "“Charlie Brown”". Art21 Intreview, art21.org.

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• Art is not democratic. It is not for the people.

  Richard Serra

  Art, People, Democratic

  "Man of steel" by Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. October 4, 2008.

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• Work out of your work. Don't work out of anybody else's work.

  Richard Serra

  Work Out

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• I was in analysis and I told my analyst I wanted to be the best sculptor in the world and he said, 'Richard, calm down.'

  Richard Serra

  Analysis, World, Calm

  Interview with Charlie Rose, November 14, 2001.

  30 Copy quote

• Basically, what you really want to do is try to engage the viewer's body relation to his thinking and walking and looking, without being overly heavy-handed about it.

  Richard Serra

  Thinking, Walking Away, Trying

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• Most of what you see in architecture are watered-down ideas of sculptors who have come before.

  Richard Serra

  Ideas, Architecture, Sculptors

  Charlie Rose interview, November 14, 2001.

  29 Copy quote

• I think you always have to find where the boundary is in relation to the context in order to be able to kind of articulate how you want the space to interact with the viewer.

  Richard Serra

  Thinking, Order, Space

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• If you reduce sculpture to the flat plane of the photograph, you're passing on only a residue of your concerns... You're not only reducing the sculpture to a different scale for the purposes of consumption, but you're denying the real content of the work.

  Richard Serra

  Real, Passing On, Different

  Richard Serra, Clara Weyergraf-Serra (1980). “Richard Serra, Interviews, Etc., 1970-1980”, p.170, Hudson River Museum

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• It could be that people want to consume sculpture the way they consume paintings - through photographs... I'm interested in the experience of sculpture in the place where it resides.

  Richard Serra

  People, Sculpture, Want

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• But what does interest me is the notion that if you do a lot of work it means there's a potential for other people to understand that a lot of things are possible with a sustained effort and that the broadening of experiences is possible and I think that's all art can be.

  Richard Serra

  Art, Mean, Thinking

  28 Copy quote

• I started working for Bethlehem Steel when I was about 16 during the summers.

  Richard Serra

  Summer, Steel, Bethlehem

  16 Copy quote

• But I don't think of any particular viewer in mind other than myself.

  Richard Serra

  Thinking, Mind, Particular

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• When I moved into making sculpture, I could handle steel the way it had been handled in the technological revolution. I could use it the way bridge builders used it; I could use it the way they used it in industry and building and not the way it had been used in art.

  Richard Serra

  Art, Bridges, Way

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• But I'll try to immerse myself in as many of the formal characteristics of site as possible in the landscape.

  Richard Serra

  Trying, Landscape, Characteristics

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• I think this, I think basically I'm not interested in people following my work or making work like my work.

  Richard Serra

  Thinking, People, Not Interested

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• And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn't mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public.

  Richard Serra

  Mean, Sculpture, Way

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• Promenade was totally driven by the context. The internal relationships of measurement and placement related to the central axis of the site. The placement of the rectangular plates followed a strict logic in that the plates tilted away and towards the center line in an asymmetrical counterpoint. However, the perception of the sculpture contradicts the logic of its relation to the site. As you walk inbetween the plates you see fragments, you see the work in part, you cannot grasp the whole.

  Richard Serra

  Axes, Perception, Sculpture

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