Richard Serra - Gagosian

Richard Serra, Rotate, 2016

Richard Serra: NJ-2, Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, Rotate is at Gagosian, London until 25 February 2017.
Three large-scale steel sculptures by Richard Serra are on show at Gagosian's Britannia Street gallery and some of his Composite Drawings are on display at their Davies Street gallery until 17 December.

I don’t think I have ever been disappointed by a Richard Serra exhibition: in the last 2 years I have seen his previous show at Gagosian London (2014, see below) and last year I saw his work at Dia: Beaon which includes his monumental Torqued Ellipses (see below). The simple but massive, physical and elemental forms are strangely exhilarating – in particular those works into which the viewer can enter – for example, NJ-2 in the current show. 
The work is concerned with weight, gravity and form. As Serra says, in conversation with Michael Craig-Martin:

I’m involved with evolution of form, the connection where space and matter meet. One of the things that form constantly has to do is reach a point where it pushes back against content…. matter informs form. That is the basis of my work: it always has been … I think the way that we understand the world is through weight and gravity. All our gestures, all our movements, the rhythm of our body, every time we turn, every time we take a step, every time we move, the gravitational load impinges on us. (Read the full text here.)

It’s exciting stuff.

Richard Serra, NJ-2, 2016

Richard Serra, NJ-2, 2016 (detail)

Richard Serra, Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, 2016

Richard Serra, Composite 1-9, 2016