tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post5445258293113580761..comments2023-08-29T08:48:55.919-04:00Comments on Carol Diehl's Art Vent: Que SerraCarol Diehlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09023589628710711343noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post-25784231316462181652007-06-12T09:51:00.000-04:002007-06-12T09:51:00.000-04:00When you use the term ‘human aspects’ I wonder if ...When you use the term ‘human aspects’ I wonder if you’re talking about being civil, not upsetting people, interfering in a way that is convivial? We may both agree that this is important, but being sympathetic, rather than antagonistic to the conditions of a site is not the only way to address it as a place. I’m not defending Serra’s work, but as an artistic question the problem of what it might mean to disrupt the connection between gentrification and the consolidation of wealth is actually quite interesting.<BR/><BR/>The question then is why anyone would want to juxtapose human aspects (habits that belong to particular conditions) that don’t usually exist there? It’s an interesting question, but one I’m not sure Serra addresses (or at least it was not addressed in the writings about and recordings of the Tilted Arc trial). His concerns at this point in his career, at least as much as one can gather from a reading of the work, is more formal than this. It seems to me that the work was simply intended to restructure the site along two axis: From the sky as a line cutting across Federal Plaza and as a changing view along the horizon at ground level. The first is an almost graphic cut in space from a disembodied position that relates to town planning (the site of buildings in relation to each other etc. a bird’s eye view) and the second is concerned with the subjective experience of gravity, both our own and that of our relationship to steel and a wall). The problem with the work, or its failure was that it functioned well in the first sense (in design?), but led to an oppressive condition in the second sense. <BR/><BR/>I understand that the work is public art and therefore an investment in the well-being of people (that’s what you sign up for), but at the time I guess he just wasn’t ready to address that in his work and the idea of refusing the commission and the money and symbolic capital that came with it wasn’t something he was able to do either. I don’t think many people could be honest enough about their own work and capabilities at that point in their career to refuse the opportunity. And in fact with so much at stake having the balls to try something outside his comfort zone was probably also unlikely. It’s a shame, but given the opportunity I wonder what he’d site there now?Terry Perkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413341151346069256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post-55204623296970249572007-06-11T16:19:00.000-04:002007-06-11T16:19:00.000-04:00Terry, your point is well-taken that the people wh...Terry, your point is well-taken that the people who commissioned "Tilted Arc" were wrong-headed, but an artist always has the option of refusing a commission he deems inappropriate or choosing to offer to make something that's not. Again, I don't believe that taking the human aspects of a site into consideration in any way compromises aesthetic integrity--indeed, it could even stimulate new artistic directions.Carol Diehlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023589628710711343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post-42436245148455944922007-06-07T06:04:00.000-04:002007-06-07T06:04:00.000-04:00Serra has always been one of those sculptor's scul...Serra has always been one of those sculptor's sculptors, a man's man, reinforcing the legacy of American sculptor as metal forming industrial worker that came from David Smith (and Gonzalez in Europe prior to that), but I've always seen Serra as someone who in a strange way (though he probably wouldn't admit it) is someone whose work deals with lightness as much as weight. And this is not because of, but despite the material he uses. You're right Serra doesn't fuck about: steel is steel and when it's placed there it stays there. But the work's placements have always been a more complex issue than that for me. You're right that his early works were blunter than his later ones, which are more obviously concerned with a less imposing and gentler poetics of a viewer's movement around and in relation to architectonic space, but even in his earlier works (from the mid to late seventies), there is a playful use of placement to create a human dance around and between the works. See pieces like 'Circuit' and 'Twins'.<BR/><BR/>With regards to the 'Tilted Arc' debacle, I've always had mixed views about the piece that have to do with the politics of fear and the power to impose conditions on a particular place. Angst, depression and fear are as much a part of human existence as the gentrification of space. You don't have to head very far uptown from central plaza in the eighties to realise that this was a condition of many people's lives. The mistake of 'Tilted Arc', which quite rightly could not exist there at that time for those people and was rightly removed, was not Serra's, but those who thought that he would create something that wouldn't be so obdurate and imposing. Someone somewhere looked at the top-ten list of sculptors and found one who lived in New York, rather than looking at the type of work he actually produced. You get what you pay for. You want a Serra, you get a Serra. Or at least you did back then. Since then his work has become more autonomous. Less to do with where it's sited than the subjectivities it produces. <BR/><BR/>So despite the fact he's only ever used one material (except very early in his career when he employed found objects for a while in Italy) his work has evolved with a grace that belies his outward public stance on sculpture. Militant in the seventies in Max's Kansas City, an interesting affront to and parasite of the money floating around in the eighties and now a gentler older statesman of sculpture, acting out the role of the Master Architect as he did in Matthew Barney's Cremaster. Time has aged him well and it seems he's been able to let go a little just when he needed to (or a more cynical critic might argue when the flow of money and desire for art changed). To paraphrase Dylan (Bob not Thomas), "He was so much older then, he's younger than that now."Terry Perkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413341151346069256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post-79870753904698482642007-06-05T08:51:00.000-04:002007-06-05T08:51:00.000-04:00Thank you, Deedee, for your comment, and I changed...Thank you, Deedee, for your comment, and I changed “mean” to “hard” because it sounds less personal and more fully expresses what I intended. In the bloggosphere, the public is often your editor. However there can be a great difference between public and private personas. History is full of examples of dictators who were sweetie-pies at home, and gurus who were impossible to live with. I was talking about Serra’s values as they showed up in his art and public stance. I feel to disregard the physical and psychological needs of the people who are using a civic space is unkind, to say the least, and that the Tilted Arc controversy did a disservice to the cause of public art. It’s entirely possible to take human needs into consideration without losing artistic integrity. Before he did the weather project at London’s Tate Modern, Olafur Eliasson interviewed people at all levels who worked there, yet it can hardly be said that this compromised him aesthetically. I hope my great admiration and respect for Serra’s work—in spite of everything—comes through, because that was the point of my piece.Carol Diehlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023589628710711343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865764596112100655.post-83949711453034664652007-06-04T22:57:00.000-04:002007-06-04T22:57:00.000-04:00Serra is not a mean son of a bitch. Ask the dozens...Serra is not a mean son of a bitch. Ask the dozens of young artists who have worked for him.<BR/><BR/>PS I also wrote about the show. www.deedeehalleck.blogspot.comDeeDee Halleckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16082147300122950343noreply@blogger.com