Next stop was the Gagosian Gallery in Kings Cross. The home of many a pumped up celebrity artist. I was enormously happy when I walked into the Richard Serra. They say in the blurb that ‘He has produced unparalleled large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban and landscape settings.’ I concur with that statement; at first you are just overwhelmed by pure nature of the beast. These mausoleums to the purity of minimalism stand soaring, reminiscent of the sides of a ship. The curvature of these vast sheets of 2 inch thick steel seem unreal, and the passage that you take through a veritable labyrinthine path is actually both daunting and exciting at the same time. The signs that tell you not to touch the sculptures only makes me want to touch them even more. Their surface is smooth but the multitude of reds that make up the fa?ßade make it seem rough and coarse. The sides are cut at very definite angles which but up to each other with precision.

I hadn’t really thought about Serra’s interest in surface until I was in one of his more open curved sculptures, and in the side room with the long straight piece, which I read more as a painting, due to
its shape and size. I started to read the welding on the sides as if it were the corners of the stretcher.To my surprise as I enter the little annexed room where he has hung some smaller sculptures as if they were paintings, and then painted the surface. The application is immaculate, he paints in matt black with precise brush marks that cover the surface. They only seem to amplify the sides, the natural organic shades in comparison to the over analysed painted plane. A thoroughly enjoyable show, I highly recommend it.