Richard Serra

Richard Serra and Ernst Fuchs
Richard Serra has broken conventions with his sculptural and graphic work and has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of what is possible, particularly with his monumental, site-specific works. The Bochum-based steel construction engineer Ernst Fuchs and his team have accompanied him on this path since 1977 in Europe, and later worldwide, and realised the construction of the sculptures. This collaboration is documented in the film Thinking is believing by Maria Anna Tappeiner, WDR/ZDF 2005.
During the installation of the works, which sometimes lasted for days, Serra created small-format drawings on site, e.g. "Untitled (For Ernst)" ca. 1980, in which he translated the experiences from his site-specific sculptures like “Extended Cantilever” at the Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam into another medium and explored the possibilities of surface and colour application. He dedicated some of these works, as well as larger oil chalk drawings, to Ernst Fuchs, thereby honouring his role in the realisation of his work.

Richard Serra and Dirk Reinartz
Some of Richard Serra's drawings are also dedicated to Dirk Reinartz. Serra wrote on one of the sheets: "For Dirk Thanks for all the great work. Richard Serra". The German photographer Dirk Reinartz and Richard Serra enjoyed a very intensive collaboration that lasted for many years and can be described as congenial.
In 1983, the US sculptor Richard Serra and the photographer Dirk Reinartz met. Since then and until Dirk Reinartz’ death in 2004, Reinartz photographed Serra's landscape installations and sculptures in public spaces all over the world. His precise black-and-white photographs became the basis for the sculpture books that Reinartz produced in close collaboration with Serra, e.g. Afangar, 1991, La Mormaire, 1997 or Lemgo Vectors, 1998, the catalogue raisonné Sculpture 1985-1998.
Richard Serra expressed his appreciation for Dirk Reinartz in a conversation with Lynn Cook on the occasion of his retrospective at MOMA New York in summer 2007: „Photography is an extension of my eye. Dirk Reinartz became an eye for me. We travelled together a lot and I miss working with him.“