Review: Richard Serra “Junction/Cycle”

Currently on View: New York
Richard Serra “Junction/Cycle”
at Gagosian Gallery, W 24th Street
14 September – 26 November 2011

Richard Serra: Junction / Cycle. Installation view. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo by Rob McKeever.

“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

Richard Serra has filled Gagosian’s 2500 square foot New York Gallery with two recent monumental works for his current show “Junction/Cycle”. Both “Junction” (2011) and “Cycle” (2010) are winding compositions of 13 foot tall curved and leaning slabs of weatherproof steel. Together, they transform the vast gallery into a maze of corridors, hidden clearings and unexpected exits.

Seen from above, the three, two inch thick free-standing slabs that form “Cycle” spiral into each other, in the shape of a triskelion. The four curling slabs of “Junction” meet almost at each other’s median, before opening out into a four-cornered star with slightly open ends. As simple as this arrangement may seem, it is impossible to fathom without the help of an areal view photography. One’s entire field of vision is immediately overcome upon entering the gallery, with these overlapping walls of golden-orange oxidized steel.

Richard Serra: Junction / Cycle. Installation view. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo by Rob McKeever.

The gaps between the walls of these structures are irresistibly inviting. It is seemingly impossible look around “Junction’s” towering concavity, or walk from one end to another, without viewing this work as in flux, changing with each angle and each step along the way. The curved corridors of “Cycle” reveal a few surprise clearings and exits, which draw a slight disorientating thrill in the overwhelming mass of the surrounding matter. From the height of each of these mammoth works, slanted shadows bear down into the rusted passageways, inevitably leading to a feeling of smallness not unlike facing the mountainous dunes of a vast, empty desert.

Richard Serra “Cycle” (2011) Weatherproof steel. 62′ x 56′ x 14′ © Richard Serra. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo by Lorenz Kienzle

In forty years of production, Serra has of course come to be recognized for these imposing works, consistently incorporating the volume of empty space where they stand, as part of their totality. Yet in encountering these two wondrous and daunting structures, we once again acknowledge Serra’s imaginative and ambitious transformation of expansive space. His choice of steel as a signature material not only re-appropriates the architecture of Gagosian gallery, but also triggers an unmediated physical sensation. On leaving the show, Serra only confirms how much simplicity still affects us profoundly.

Text by Yaniya Lee

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Gagosian Gallery
555 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
USA
+1 212 741 1111
newyork@gagosian.com
www.gagosian.com