Richard Serra, a renowned sculptor who originally aimed to be a painter, instead became one of the era's greatest sculptors, passed away at the age of 85 at his home in Orient, N.Y., on the North Fork of Long Island. His monumental blocks, tilted walls of rusting steel, and other immense and inscrutable forms created environments that demanded to be walked through or around to be fully experienced.
His most celebrated works, with their monumental tilting corridors, ellipses, and spirals of steel, had the scale of ancient temples or sacred sites and the enigmatic nature of landmarks like Stonehenge. Yet, the mystical effect of these massive forms stemmed not from religious belief but from the distortions of space created by their leaning, curving, or circling walls, and the frankness of their materials.
This innovative approach to sculpture introduced a flowing, circling geometry that required viewers to move through and around to grasp fully. Mr. Serra often emphasized that his work demanded a lot of "walking and looking," or what he called "peripatetic perception." It was fundamentally "viewer-centered," with meanings to be discovered through individual exploration and reflection.
His pieces were crafted from giant plates of cold-rolled steel, more commonly used in ship hulls, requiring permits to cross bridges and cranes with elaborate rigging for installation. The inherent weight and scale of these sculptures, standing without screws, bolts, or welds, often conveyed a sense of danger. The leaning pieces, for example, relied on their computer-plotted curves and tilts for stability, while the flat, upright, slab-like elements suggested both sturdy walls and gravestones, rarely less than six inches thick.
Mr. Serra's forms expanded into solid cylinders ("rounds") or near cubes of solid forged steel, maintaining unquestionable stability even when stacked. He possessed the quintessential sculptor's appearance: a compact, muscular build, a powerfully shaped head once adorned with unruly curls, and a combative personality that reflected in his expression, which bordered on fierce even when he smiled.
Brilliant, uncompromising, and endlessly argumentative, Mr. Serra spoke in a clipped, emphatic manner that could be terse or loquacious. Despite mellowing with age, he could still appear slightly coiled, as if poised for a debate.
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