Caves of steel

We just got back from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where a stunning if marginally incomplete Richard Serra retrospective is on display until September 10th. If you're not familiar with Serra's unique sculptural works, click here. Most contemporary art enthusiasts will recognize him as the guy who puts up ridiculously large sheets of hot-rolled steel (richly colored with an orange patina) and constructs incidental environments with them. I first heard about him in art school -- his brother Rudy Serra used to teach there. But today was the first time I'd seen his work outside of the printed page, and it was an experience simultaneously new and primal.

New, because as you walk alongside the undulating walls of rusted steel, it feels like an alien landscape. Primal, because your brain desperately tries to make sense of this new environment, so it invents age-old scenarios. When the walls curved outward as they rose, it seemed like you were standing at the bottom of a 15-foot canyon. When they curved inward so as to hang overhead, it was like being in the shade of a cave. It was funny because as Sarah and I explored the different parts of the exhibit, she felt safest and coziest in the "cave" parts, where the walls curved inward. When I pressed her to move on, she'd do so only reluctantly. But she felt instinctively vulnerable in the "canyon" portions, as if her environment left her open to attack. How ironic that ribbons of steel placed inside the geometric confines of an art museum evokes such strong associations with natural geography and the outdoors.
Several steel walls were also placed outside the museum, in the sculpture garden (where the photo above was shot). Fantastic stuff all around.

And of course, we couldn't leave without revisiting the Piet Mondrian gallery, home of some downright brilliant canvases by my favorite painter.

[Click here to view MoMA's microsite on the Serra exhibit, including high-res images and a fascinating time-lapse video of the installation in the sculpture garden.]