Jessica Yellin Instagram – Richard Serra, one of the most celebrated sculptors of the modern era died today. He was 85. The New York Times reports he died of pneumonia. I remember tagging along as my parents drove to see – or rather experience – Serra’s sculptures. Sometimes much to my frustration, my parents would drive an hour out of our way to visit a Serra installation. (My parents really liked art.) Spending time with a Serra sculpture is a visceral experience. They are massive works that take up space and allow you to experience awe, endless perspective shifts, and sometimes a little anxiety as you move through them (they’re made of rough hulking metal, sometimes pitched at an angle with no visible screws or means of support). Serra’s work gained attention in the 1960s and acclaim in the 1970s and 1980s. In a @nytimes obituary for Serra, Roberta Smith describes his work this way: “Mr. Serra’s most celebrated works had some of the scale of ancient temples or sacred sites and the inscrutability of landmarks like Stonehenge. But if these massive forms had a mystical effect, it came not from religious belief but from the distortions of space created by their leaning, curving or circling walls and the frankness of their materials. This was something new in sculpture; a flowing, circling geometry that had to be moved through and around to be fully experienced. Mr. Serra said his work required a lot of “walking and looking,” or “peripatetic perception.” It was, he said, “viewer centered”: Its meanings were to be arrived at by individual exploration and reflection. For anyone questioning why I’m posting on this: culture is news. It’s worth pausing to recognize the creative minds that recast what we consider beautiful and allow us to experience awe. Your thoughts? 🎥 All images are from @richard.serra instagram page. If they require further photo credits please DM me and I will add prominently. 🙏🙏🙏