Art and Architecture: Early Work | Richard Serra, Hal Foster | An Art Book Series Event

FREE - Berger Forum doors open at 5:30 p.m.

On the occasion of the publication Richard Serra: Early Work (Steidl/David Zwirner), Richard Serra is joined by American art critic and historian Hal Foster to discuss the artist's seminal body of work spanning 1966 to 1971.

These works represent the beginning of Serra’s innovative, process-oriented experiments with nontraditional materials, such as vulcanized rubber, neon, and lead. Also included in this thoroughly researched and unprecedented volume are key early examples of works in steel, as well as a selection of the artist’s films from this period. The interplay of gravity and material that was introduced early in Serra’s career set the stage for his ongoing engagement with the spatial and temporal properties of sculpture. Featuring new scholarship by Foster, in addition to archival texts and photographs from the years 1966 to 1972, Richard Serra: Early Work aims to reconsider the groundbreaking practices and ideas that so firmly situate Serra in the history of 20th Century art and make him one of the most influential artists working today.

Copies of the book are available for purchase and signing at the event after audience Q&A.

Richard Serra’s (born 1938) first solo exhibitions were held at the Galleria La Salita, Rome, 1966, and, in the United States, at the Leo Castelli Warehouse, New York, in 1969. His first solo museum exhibition was held at The Pasadena Art Museum in 1970. Serra has since participated in Documenta 5 (1972), 6 (1977), 7 (1982), and 8 (1987), in Kassel; the Venice Biennales of 1984 and 2001; and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Annual and Biennial exhibitions of 1968, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1995.

He has had solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1977; the Kunsthalle Tübingen, 1978; the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1980; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1984; the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, 1985; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1986; the Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, 1986; the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, 1987; the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, 1987; the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1988; the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 1990; the Kunsthaus Zürich, 1990; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1992; Dia Center for the Arts, New York, 1997; Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, 1997-98; Trajan’s Market, Rome, 2000; The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, 2003; and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004.

In 2005 eight large-scale works by Serra were installed permanently at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and in 2007 the Museum of Modern Art, New York presented a retrospective of the artist’s work. His work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris in 2008 (MONUMENTA 2008: Richard Serra: Promenade); in 2011-12 the exhibition Brancusi-Serra traveled from the Beyeler Foundation, Riehen to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and a traveling survey of Serra’s drawings was on view in 2011-12 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Menil Collection, Houston. He is the first artist to win the Architectural League President's Medal.

Hal Foster is Townsend Martin Class of 1917 Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences. His most recent books are Junkspace with Running Room (coauthored with Rem Koolhaas), The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha, and The Art-Architecture Complex. An editor of the journal October, he also writes regularly for the London Review of Books and Artforum.

In its sixth year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.

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