Richard Serra, Minimalist Sculptor Whose Steel Creations Awed Viewers, Dies at 85

Richard Serra, the sculptor whose grand steel works defined the Minimalist art movement, has died at 85. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Serra died on Tuesday at in his home in Orient, New York; the artist’s lawyer said that Serra had been battling pneumonia.

Serra’s sculptures defined a generation of art-making. Working on an unusually large scale, Serra crafted gigantic artworks that enlisted spirals, cubes, and cones of steel. These works loom over viewers, threatening to squash them.

But despite their menacing quality, Serra’s sculptures have enraptured viewers across the globe. They have been seen across the world, in venues ranging from Dia:Beacon in Upstate New York to the deserts of Qatar.

His works have not been without controversy. Tilted Arc (1981), a 120-foot-long bar of Cor-Ten steel that was once set in a plaza in New York’s Financial District, is today remembered as one of the most reviled works of public art in the city’s history. It was ultimately taken away because people hated it so much.

Yet for the most part, critics have spoken hyperbolically of Serra’s work, viewing it as a game-changing oeuvre that succeeded in pushing sculpture into new conceptual realms. He contended with the ways that an artwork not only exists in space but reorients it, shaping how viewers approach the area around them. Accordingly, his sculptures variously restrict, warp, and block viewers’ space, forcing them to move through galleries in ways they may not normally.

A full obituary will follow.