Richard Serra

Ace Gallery, Los Angeles
Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf
Akira Ikeda Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
Ace Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in March 2001

San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 20 American Artists, July - September 1980
Nagoya, Akira Ikeda Gallery, Sculptures & Reliefs, September - November 1994

Exh. Cat. Tübingen, Kunsthalle Tübingen (and travelling), Richard Serra: Arbeiten 66-77/Works 66-77, 1978, cat. no. 97, p. 37, illustrated (1969 lead version)
Exh. Cat., Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Richard Serra, 1983, p. 61, illustrated (1969 lead version) 
Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Richard Serra/Sculpture, 1986, cat. no. 38, p. 80, illustrated (1969 lead version)
Ernst-Gerhard Güse, ed., Richard Serra, New York, 1988, p. 43, illustrated (1969 lead version)
Exh. Cat., Düsseldorf, Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, Richard Serra: Props, 1994, cat. no. 2, p. 159, illustrated  (1969 lead version)
Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, 2007, cat. no. 39, p. 136, illustrated (1969 lead version)

This sculpture is in excellent condition and appears structurally sound. The work displays the expected corrosion layer which varies in color and texture as is typical of Richard Serra's Corten steel sculptures. Any surface markings or variations are inherent to the fabrication process of the Corten steel and are characteristic of Serra's sculptures. The individual plates weigh approximately 2000 lbs. each. As with other outdoor sculptures, the work should be inspected at intervals by a sculpture conservator, and for Corten steel, it can be routinely and gently cleaned with water and a mild detergent.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Exhibiting both an absolute solidity and a deceptive delicacy, Four Plates Edges Up is the ultimate distillation of Richard Serra’s innovative sculptural practice. In a 2007 interview with Kynaston McShine, conducted on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective, the artist commented, “One of the first things I did when I started working in New York was to write down a list of verbs…to splash, to tear, to roll, to cut and so on. I then enacted those verbs in the studio with rubber and lead in relation to time and place…The verb list allowed me to experiment without any preconceived idea about what I was going to make and not worry about the history of sculpture. I wasn’t burdened by any prescripted definition of material, process or end product.”  (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Richard Serra Sculptor: Forty Years, 2007, p. 27)  As evinced by the theoretical character of this statement, Serra’s oeuvre is contingent upon a conceptual core of premises that the artist has explored with ever increasing rigor. Four Plates Edges Up is the perfect embodiment of these principles, thus revealing the full mastery of Richard Serra’s incomparable sculptural aesthetic.

Before he forged the present work out of Cor-ten steel, Serra conceived of the piece’s construction and executed a version in lead in 1969, at the very apex of the Minimalist art movement. The lead version remained in the collection of Serra’s close friend and fellow sculptor Donald Judd for many years; as recently as 2006, the piece has been listed as in Serra’s own collection. The compelling formal composition of Four Plates Edges Up – three four-foot square pieces of steel balanced on their three-inch wide edges to create a solid wall that supports, through brilliant engineering and balance, a fourth similarly sized square – is absolutely archetypal of Serra’s groundbreaking approach to monumental sculpture. The work’s elegantly simple form lays bare the material, uniting technical construction with artistic creation, and making the viewer and the surrounding environment absolutely integral to the artistic concept. For Serra, the real subject of the work is the exchange that occurs between the sculpture and the viewer, and how this interaction can result in a novel viewing experience. The best examples of the artist’s corpus assert themselves, not as objects for us to consider, but as configurations of the physical space in which we move.

Most dynamically, as we change our perception of Four Plates Edges Up through successive visits with it, so too does it change as a result of its medium. Serra chose Cor-ten steel for many of his works because he valued the way that it oxidizes, first turning orange, then dark brown, before ultimately becoming amber. A temporal dimension is thus essential to Four Plates Edges Up; it is a truly exciting work that evolves into its final form over time. In discussing this aspect of Serra’s practice, the renowned art critic Robert Hughes once commented, “his greatest achievement has been to give fabricated steel the power and density, the emotional address to the human body, the sense of empathy and urgency and liberation, that once belonged only to bronze and stone… Labels are a nuisance, a distraction. But if you wanted to use one, you could just as easily call Richard Serra the last abstract expressionist.” (Robert Hughes cited in The Guardian, Wednesday June 22, 2005)