Richard Serra
Biography of Richard Serra
* 2.11.1938 San Francisco, Kalifornien - † 26. März 2024, Long Island, New YorkLife and Works
1957-1961
Studies at the University of California at Berkeley und Santa Barbara, graduating as Bachelor in English literature.
1961-1964
Studies at Yale University in New Haven/Connecticut, earning B.A., M.A. and M.F.A in creative arts. Works with Josef Alberts on his book The interaction of Color (1963).
1964-1965
Spends one year in Paris, having a grant of the Yale University. Comes into contact with Philip Glass.
1966
Spends one year in Florence on Fulbright grant. Has first one man exhibition at the Gallery La Salita in Rom. Travels to Spain and North Africa. Moves to New York.
Richard Serra 1989
1967
Makes series of rubber and neon-tubing works and scatter pieces.
1968-1969
Begins cooperation with Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. Makes series of molten- and cast-lead works (Splashing and Castings) and series of lead rolls and lead props. Props on exhibition at Teh Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Makes first studio fils and begins linear drewings. Begins to work in steel: Constructiions Skullcracker series on grounds of Kaiser Steel Corporation, Fontana, California, in conjunction with the Art & Technology Program of Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. Starts series of large, interior steel installations, begins working with strutural engineers. Makes series of cut and sawed pieces. Collaborates with Joan Jonas on viedeo, film and performance. First one man exhibition in United States at Castelli Warehouse. Makes Splash Piece: Casting in Jasper Jone´s studio. Participates in show exhibitions, f. ex. New Media, New Methods at Museum of Modern Art, New York, Op Losse Schroeven, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and When Attitudes Become Form at Kunsthalle Bern.
1970
Travels to Japan. Participates in Tokyo Biennale. Installs To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted in Ueno-Park/ Tokyo. Works in Kyoto. Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. Installs To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted in a street in the Bronx, New York. Starts series of large outdoor urban and landscape works, with Pulitzer Piece:Stepped Elevations in St. Louis and Shift in King City, Kanada, work with large scultpures in the landscape.
1971
Initiates first black canvas drawings.
1972
Exhibition of Circuit at documenta 5 in Kassel.
1975
Receives Sculpture Award from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Films Railroad Turnbridge in Portland/Oregon. Beginns cooperation with Alexander v. Berswordt-Wallrabe, Galerie m Bochum.
1977
Exhibits drawings at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Works at Thyssen steel mill, Heinrichshütte, Hattingen, West Germany on Berlin Block for Charlie Chaplin for Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Shows Terminal on documenta 6 in Kassel. Installs the sculpture in the courtyard of galerie m, Bochum.
1979
Commissened by General Services to create permanent sculpture for Federal Plaza, New York. Films Steelmill/ Stahlwerk in Thyssen mill with Clara Weyergraf. Wet German CDU party critisizes installation of Terminal in Bochum.
1980
St. John's Rotary Arc and T.W.U. installed in New York. Installation of Wrights Triangle at Westerm Washington State University. , Bellingham and landscape work at Wenkenpark, Riehen, Switzerland.
1981
Tilted Arc installed at Federal Plaza, New York. Receives Kaiserring Award from city of Goslar, Germany and installs Gedenkstätte.
1983
Receives honorary fellowship from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. Travels to Japan. One man exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris, installing Clara-Clara in the Tuileries Gardens at Place de la Concorde in conjunction with show. Installs Fassbinder in Westfälischen Landesmuseum, Münster, Germany.
1984
Installs La Palmera and designs plaza at La Verneda, Barcelona, Spain. Installation of Slat at La défense, Paris and Seans´s Spiral in Dublin.
1985
Installs Clara-Clara at Square de Choisy in Paris. Commissioned to produce sculpture for hispital in Nagoya, Japan. Installs Carnegie, a vertical sculpture at Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. Receives Carnegie Medal.
1986
Opens Retrospektive at Museum of Modern Art, New York. Builds Olson and Call me Ishmael. Conceives and builds site-specific indoor installation Equal Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi for Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Installs landscape work Porten i Slugten at the Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark.
1987
Installs Berlin Junction in front of Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germamy. Builds Street Levels and Spiral Sections for documenta 8, Kassel. Begins series of flat steel wall props. Opens show Seven Spaces - Seven Sculptures; the museum decides to purchase the entire installation for permanent exhibition at Lenbachaus, München.
1988
Installs 50 ton forged round One in the sculpture park of the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Niederlande. Installs Maillart Extended (two part post and lintel piece) at the opposite ends of pedestrian passage of Grendfey Viaduct, bridge between Fribourg and Bern, Switzerland. Exhibits Zeichnungsinstallationen at Kunsthalle Basel. Exhibits ten sculptures at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
1989
Tilted Arc is destroyed by the United States Government on March 15. Installs Axis, open vertical, site-specific construction juxtaposed to the Philip Johnson building of the Museen der Stadt Bielefeld, Germany. Circuit III installed in 38 foot square room, 4 plates, each 12´x 25`. The work is part of Situation Kunst , Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Begins to work with Min Tanaka at Opera Comique, Paris on dance performance to open october 1990 in conjunction with Festival d´automne. .
1990
Installs Stacks at Yale University Museum. Installs in the context of solo exhibitions The Hours of the Day at Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland and Threats of Hell at capc Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France. Installs Afangar at the island Videy, near Reykjavik, Island. Exhibits Tekeningen/Drawings at Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht.
1991
Receives Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Award for sculpture in Duisburg, Germany. Installs Octagon for St. Eloi in front of Église St. Martin, Chagny, France. Commission for a sculpture for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Installatio of Schunnemonk Fork at Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York.
1992
Exhibits site-specific work Weight and Measures at the Duveen Galleries of the Tate Gallery, London. Retrospective at Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Exhibits Running Arcs (for John Cage) at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and >The Drowned and the Saved at the synagoge of Stommeln near Cologne. Installation of Intersection at Theaterplatz, Basel. T.W.U. purchased by the City of Hamburg. Installs permanent casting peice, Gutter Splash, Two Corner Cast at De Pont Foundation in Tilburg, Netherlands. Installs Torque on the campus of Saarbrücken University, Germany. Exhibition of Graphik aus den Jahren 1989 bis 1922 at Saarlandmuseum Saarbrücken. Installs Greenpoint on the campus of the university of Nebraska in Lincoln. Receives Sculpture Center Award for Distinction in Sculpture, New York. Exhibition Gravures at Musée d´Art Moderne de Céret, France.
1993
Installs Elevations for L'Allée de La Mormaire near Paris.
1994
The Hours of the Day permanently installed at Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Exhibition of Drawings and Prints at the National Museum of Art, Osaka. Exhibition of Weight and Measure Drawings at Drawing Center, New York.
1996
Installs Exchange at Plateau Kirchberg, Luxemoburg. Completes landscape work Sea Level, in Zeewolde, The Netherlands. Installation of Crottorf Elevations for Hermann Hatzfeldt in Crottorf, Germany, and of Dialogue with Johann Conrad Schlaun at the Rüschhaus in Münster, Germany. Installs splash piece Measurements of Time (Seeing is Believing) at Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
1997
The Drowned and the Saved installed in the ruins of St. Kolumba church, Cologne. Installs Snake in the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank O. Gehry, in Bilbao, Spain. Exhibits Torqued Ellipses at Dia Center for the Arts, New York.
1998
Installs Lemgo Vectors (Elevations for Walter) in the STAFF landscape park, Lemgo, Germany. One-artist-exhibition at MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Installs Bramme (für das Ruhrgebiet) on top of the Schurenbachhalde, a slagheap in Essen, Germany.
1999
Solo Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Torqued Ellipses) and the Mercati di Traiano in Rome. Exhibits Druckgrafik 1972-1999 at Museum Kurhaus Kleve, k/haus Künstlerhaus Wien, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, SMAK Stedelijk Museum voor actuele Kunst, Gent.
2001
Exhibits Torqued Spirals at Venezia Biennale, Italy.
2003
Honoured as a member of the order Pour le Mérite for scientists and artists in Berlin, Germany. Exhibits Naples at Piazza del Plebiscito in Neapel, Italy.
2004
Solo exhibition at Museo Archelogico Nazionale, Neapel. Installs Dirk's Pod at Novartis Campus, Basel.
2006
Summertime, Galerie m, Bochum, group exhibition
2007
Sculpture: Forty Years , The Museum of Modern Art, New York
2008
Zeichnungen und Druckgrafik, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
Monumenta, Grand Palais, Paris
Drawings | Work Comes Out of Work, Kunsthaus Bregenz
Filme, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2011
Paperworks, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Kunsthalle Rostock
Richard Serra Drawing - A Retrospective, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Brancusi | Serra, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen near Basel
Extended Drawing, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht
2013
Richard Serra in: Moving. Norman Foster on Art, Carré d'Art - Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nîmes
2015
in: Green City. Geformte Landschaft - Vernetzte Natur. Das Ruhrgebiet in der Kunst, Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen
Druckgrafik, Galerie m Bochum
gleich und gleich und gleich und anders. Serialisierungen in der Kunst seit den 1960er Jahren, Situation Kunst, Bochum
2017
Drawings 2015-2017, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
in: Props, Films, Early Works, Museum Wiesbaden
in: FARBE, KunstRaum, Duisburg
2019
in: Negativer Raum, Zetrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe
kunstgebiet.ruhr tour from Bochum to Duisburg, that conncts seven works in public space by Richard Serra
2019
Galerie m | 3rd May 1969 - 3rd May 2019
2020
in: on paper- on colour, KunstRaum, Duisburg
2022
in: Antipoden, Galerie m, Bochum
Makes series of rubber and neon-tubing works and scatter pieces.
1968-1969
Begins cooperation with Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. Makes series of molten- and cast-lead works (Splashing and Castings) and series of lead rolls and lead props. Props on exhibition at Teh Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Makes first studio fils and begins linear drewings. Begins to work in steel: Constructiions Skullcracker series on grounds of Kaiser Steel Corporation, Fontana, California, in conjunction with the Art & Technology Program of Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. Starts series of large, interior steel installations, begins working with strutural engineers. Makes series of cut and sawed pieces. Collaborates with Joan Jonas on viedeo, film and performance. First one man exhibition in United States at Castelli Warehouse. Makes Splash Piece: Casting in Jasper Jone´s studio. Participates in show exhibitions, f. ex. New Media, New Methods at Museum of Modern Art, New York, Op Losse Schroeven, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and When Attitudes Become Form at Kunsthalle Bern.
1970
Travels to Japan. Participates in Tokyo Biennale. Installs To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted in Ueno-Park/ Tokyo. Works in Kyoto. Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. Installs To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted in a street in the Bronx, New York. Starts series of large outdoor urban and landscape works, with Pulitzer Piece:Stepped Elevations in St. Louis and Shift in King City, Kanada, work with large scultpures in the landscape.
1971
Initiates first black canvas drawings.
1972
Exhibition of Circuit at documenta 5 in Kassel.
1975
Receives Sculpture Award from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Films Railroad Turnbridge in Portland/Oregon. Beginns cooperation with Alexander v. Berswordt-Wallrabe, Galerie m Bochum.
1977
Exhibits drawings at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Works at Thyssen steel mill, Heinrichshütte, Hattingen, West Germany on Berlin Block for Charlie Chaplin for Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Shows Terminal on documenta 6 in Kassel. Installs the sculpture in the courtyard of galerie m, Bochum.
1979
Commissened by General Services to create permanent sculpture for Federal Plaza, New York. Films Steelmill/ Stahlwerk in Thyssen mill with Clara Weyergraf. Wet German CDU party critisizes installation of Terminal in Bochum.
1980
St. John's Rotary Arc and T.W.U. installed in New York. Installation of Wrights Triangle at Westerm Washington State University. , Bellingham and landscape work at Wenkenpark, Riehen, Switzerland.
1981
Tilted Arc installed at Federal Plaza, New York. Receives Kaiserring Award from city of Goslar, Germany and installs Gedenkstätte.
1983
Receives honorary fellowship from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. Travels to Japan. One man exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris, installing Clara-Clara in the Tuileries Gardens at Place de la Concorde in conjunction with show. Installs Fassbinder in Westfälischen Landesmuseum, Münster, Germany.
1984
Installs La Palmera and designs plaza at La Verneda, Barcelona, Spain. Installation of Slat at La défense, Paris and Seans´s Spiral in Dublin.
1985
Installs Clara-Clara at Square de Choisy in Paris. Commissioned to produce sculpture for hispital in Nagoya, Japan. Installs Carnegie, a vertical sculpture at Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. Receives Carnegie Medal.
1986
Opens Retrospektive at Museum of Modern Art, New York. Builds Olson and Call me Ishmael. Conceives and builds site-specific indoor installation Equal Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi for Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Installs landscape work Porten i Slugten at the Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark.
1987
Installs Berlin Junction in front of Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germamy. Builds Street Levels and Spiral Sections for documenta 8, Kassel. Begins series of flat steel wall props. Opens show Seven Spaces - Seven Sculptures; the museum decides to purchase the entire installation for permanent exhibition at Lenbachaus, München.
1988
Installs 50 ton forged round One in the sculpture park of the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Niederlande. Installs Maillart Extended (two part post and lintel piece) at the opposite ends of pedestrian passage of Grendfey Viaduct, bridge between Fribourg and Bern, Switzerland. Exhibits Zeichnungsinstallationen at Kunsthalle Basel. Exhibits ten sculptures at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
1989
Tilted Arc is destroyed by the United States Government on March 15. Installs Axis, open vertical, site-specific construction juxtaposed to the Philip Johnson building of the Museen der Stadt Bielefeld, Germany. Circuit III installed in 38 foot square room, 4 plates, each 12´x 25`. The work is part of Situation Kunst , Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Begins to work with Min Tanaka at Opera Comique, Paris on dance performance to open october 1990 in conjunction with Festival d´automne. .
1990
Installs Stacks at Yale University Museum. Installs in the context of solo exhibitions The Hours of the Day at Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland and Threats of Hell at capc Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France. Installs Afangar at the island Videy, near Reykjavik, Island. Exhibits Tekeningen/Drawings at Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht.
1991
Receives Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Award for sculpture in Duisburg, Germany. Installs Octagon for St. Eloi in front of Église St. Martin, Chagny, France. Commission for a sculpture for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Installatio of Schunnemonk Fork at Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York.
1992
Exhibits site-specific work Weight and Measures at the Duveen Galleries of the Tate Gallery, London. Retrospective at Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Exhibits Running Arcs (for John Cage) at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and >The Drowned and the Saved at the synagoge of Stommeln near Cologne. Installation of Intersection at Theaterplatz, Basel. T.W.U. purchased by the City of Hamburg. Installs permanent casting peice, Gutter Splash, Two Corner Cast at De Pont Foundation in Tilburg, Netherlands. Installs Torque on the campus of Saarbrücken University, Germany. Exhibition of Graphik aus den Jahren 1989 bis 1922 at Saarlandmuseum Saarbrücken. Installs Greenpoint on the campus of the university of Nebraska in Lincoln. Receives Sculpture Center Award for Distinction in Sculpture, New York. Exhibition Gravures at Musée d´Art Moderne de Céret, France.
1993
Installs Elevations for L'Allée de La Mormaire near Paris.
1994
The Hours of the Day permanently installed at Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Exhibition of Drawings and Prints at the National Museum of Art, Osaka. Exhibition of Weight and Measure Drawings at Drawing Center, New York.
1996
Installs Exchange at Plateau Kirchberg, Luxemoburg. Completes landscape work Sea Level, in Zeewolde, The Netherlands. Installation of Crottorf Elevations for Hermann Hatzfeldt in Crottorf, Germany, and of Dialogue with Johann Conrad Schlaun at the Rüschhaus in Münster, Germany. Installs splash piece Measurements of Time (Seeing is Believing) at Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
1997
The Drowned and the Saved installed in the ruins of St. Kolumba church, Cologne. Installs Snake in the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank O. Gehry, in Bilbao, Spain. Exhibits Torqued Ellipses at Dia Center for the Arts, New York.
1998
Installs Lemgo Vectors (Elevations for Walter) in the STAFF landscape park, Lemgo, Germany. One-artist-exhibition at MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Installs Bramme (für das Ruhrgebiet) on top of the Schurenbachhalde, a slagheap in Essen, Germany.
1999
Solo Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Torqued Ellipses) and the Mercati di Traiano in Rome. Exhibits Druckgrafik 1972-1999 at Museum Kurhaus Kleve, k/haus Künstlerhaus Wien, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, SMAK Stedelijk Museum voor actuele Kunst, Gent.
2001
Exhibits Torqued Spirals at Venezia Biennale, Italy.
2003
Honoured as a member of the order Pour le Mérite for scientists and artists in Berlin, Germany. Exhibits Naples at Piazza del Plebiscito in Neapel, Italy.
2004
Solo exhibition at Museo Archelogico Nazionale, Neapel. Installs Dirk's Pod at Novartis Campus, Basel.
2006
Summertime, Galerie m, Bochum, group exhibition
2007
Sculpture: Forty Years , The Museum of Modern Art, New York
2008
Zeichnungen und Druckgrafik, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
Monumenta, Grand Palais, Paris
Drawings | Work Comes Out of Work, Kunsthaus Bregenz
Filme, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2011
Paperworks, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Kunsthalle Rostock
Richard Serra Drawing - A Retrospective, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Brancusi | Serra, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen near Basel
Extended Drawing, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht
2013
Richard Serra in: Moving. Norman Foster on Art, Carré d'Art - Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nîmes
2015
in: Green City. Geformte Landschaft - Vernetzte Natur. Das Ruhrgebiet in der Kunst, Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen
Druckgrafik, Galerie m Bochum
gleich und gleich und gleich und anders. Serialisierungen in der Kunst seit den 1960er Jahren, Situation Kunst, Bochum
2017
Drawings 2015-2017, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
in: Props, Films, Early Works, Museum Wiesbaden
in: FARBE, KunstRaum, Duisburg
2019
in: Negativer Raum, Zetrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe
kunstgebiet.ruhr tour from Bochum to Duisburg, that conncts seven works in public space by Richard Serra
2019
Galerie m | 3rd May 1969 - 3rd May 2019
2020
in: on paper- on colour, KunstRaum, Duisburg
2022
in: Antipoden, Galerie m, Bochum