Weight and Measure Responses

1. What were Richard Serra's goals for the installation?
Richard Serra wanted to redirect the way people experience the Duveen Galleries. He wanted to put an end to the forcible direction the place imposed. To do this, he wanted to create a space that was to be purely experienced and not seen as an object.

2. Define the field Serra is referring to when he states that his sculptural elements need to create "enough tension within the field to hold the experience of presence in the place". How do you define "experience of presence"?
The field Serra refers to is the visual field. He wanted to use the height of the ceiling, having one level higher than the other, so they appeared level in perspective. This would cause the tension because normally in a corridor a ceiling would approach a vantage point with the floor and walls. The experience of presence is the experience of the subtleties and elements of a space, but not the conscious awareness of them. Serra wanted you to fell the presence of the space by being in it not by being so aware of the elements of the space you see the space as an object. This is why he dismissed his octagon idea.

3. How do the columns, pedestal condition, octagonal space and vertical axis challenge Serra?
The columns cause you to acknowledge the vertical scale of the room when Serra wanted you to experience the directionality and linearity of the central axis. The octagon space create too much of a focal point and a pedestal condition. It too gives too much emphasis to the vertical axis and becomes too objective and sculptural. Serra wanted this space to be just that, purely space stripped of its objectivity.

4. What is effective in terms of the shape, scale and number of the two square elements in the Duveen Galleries?
All of them shape, scale and number help prevent the space from becoming an object. A rectangle is used because it is read well and the parallel conditions help reinforce the horizontal axis. The scale was chose to be large enough to avoid the “furniture scale” that might trigger a symbolic relationship. And only two rectangles were chosen to be used because more than two sets up a series causing repetition and duplication, which leads to the spaces becoming a series of objects.

5. Describe the differences and similarities between Barnett Newman's and Richard Serra's work.
Both Newman’s paintings and Serra’s sculptures deal with the experience of the participator. While one is experience on a two dimensional canvass as you “scan the field” the other surrounds you and is experienced as you walk through the space. However, where Serra’s sculptures strives to prevent objectiveness in his work, as in the “Torqued Ellipse VI” in the Guggenheim in Spain, Newman’s sculptures become very objective, like his “Broken Obilisk.