"I'd written a verb list: to roll, to fold, to cut,
to dangle, to twist...and I really just worked out pieces
in relation to the verb list physically in a space."
"...Time and movement became really crucial to how
I deal with what I deal with, not only sight and boundary,
but how one walks through a piece and what one feels and
registers in terms of one's own body in relation to another
body."
"...When you can't anticipate break-downs, weather
conditions, being held up for days, then you just have to
make the best of it."
You've been working as an artist
for over forty years now. What were some of your earliest
interests?
SERRA:
When I first started, what was
very, very important to me was dealing with the nature of
process.
So what I had done is I'd written a verb list: to roll, to
fold, to cut, to dangle, to twist...and I really just worked
out pieces in relation to the verb list physically in a space.
Now, what happens when you do that is you don't become involved
with the psychology of what you're making, nor do you become
involved with the after image of what it's going to look like.
So, basically it gives you a way of proceeding with material
in relation to body movement, in relation to making, that
divorces from any notion of metaphor,
any notion of easy imagery.
As the work becomes more extensive and I had a need to walk
into and through and around it, then you get involved with
what effect the work has physically on your body as you walk.
So, time and movement became really crucial to how I deal
with what I deal with, not only sight and boundary, but how
one walks through a piece and what one feels and registers
in terms of one's own body in relation to another body. So,
in that sense, as the pieces became bigger and you walked
into and through and around them, they took on other concerns
which were more psychological, even though implied and not
specific than in the early work, where process was the key
to organizing the principle of how one would structure something.
So I would say, particularly in the ellipses, and now in the
spirals, one's body in relation to an unknown place that's
revealed as you walk in it has probably a bigger psychological
factor than the earlier work. Now, that could be what people
respond to; I don't know. Particularly when these are being
built now, the spirals, there is a sense that as the piece
unfolds it's ongoing and you really have no idea where the
path is going to lead you. And that's very, very different
than the earlier work which was very axiomatic in that, once
you saw it, you understood how it went up, how it was being
held together and how you could enter and walk in, through,
and around it. So, it was all revealed. Here, there's more
of a concealment before it's revealed.
ART:21:
Now, I know that your naming
of the piece in San Francisco was somewhat spontaneous.
SERRA:
Absolutely spontaneous.
ART:21:
Could you tell a little about
the naming of the piece?
SERRA:
Well, I'm standing there with
the client, it was the morning that [Charles] Schulz had died,
and everybody had just read about it in the paper, and he's
from the Bay area. He's from Petaluma. And I grew up in San
Francisco. I said to the client, "What do you think, Charlie
Brown?" And he said, "Oh, yeah, too bad ... about Charlie."
He said, "Oh, too bad about Charlie Brown." I said, "No, the
piece. Should we name it Charlie Brown?" He said, "Yeah, why
not?" And that was it. But it just was the propitious moment,
to give the piece a name kind of as an homage to somebody
that all of us have grown up with and have an enormous affection
for, and it seemed as if I was ever going to do it, I would
do it then. So I did it. It was a very spontaneous thing.
I certainly didn't think I was building a work of art called
"Charlie Brown." And, if the work brings a smile to your face
and it's hard to put down something called "Charlie Brown..."
(Laughs) I'll accept that.
ART:21:
What are the steps involved in
making a work like "Charlie Brown," which is just enormous
in its size?
SERRA:
Yeah, okay. How the work evolves
in terms of its manifestation from thinking about an idea:
either it originates in the place and then back to the studio,
but then there's a kind of elaborate process that goes on,
bringing work into being. And that usually goes from my studio
models, then to Frank Gehry's studio, to an engineer there
named Rick Smith, and then they're worked out with the Catea
computer program. Then it's back to models, and back and forth
between the models and the Catea Program, until we finalize
the solution of how we're going to build, where we're going
to build, and what we're going to build.
In the intervening time, usually the models change because
I return to the site
and see the condition of the place. Other things that change
is certain things in terms of earthquake codes and other things
that you have to build into the design of works, particularly
in a place like California. So that means that the subsurface
condition has to be something that you have to take into consideration.
Also, if you're bringing heavy work in, unless you're coming
in where the building is being constructed initially, all
of those things have to be carefully looked at in terms of
coordinating different groups that come together and interplay
in bringing a piece in. With this piece in particular, we
had to load it, ship it, get it to a port in Europe, ship
it again through the Panama Canal, offload it. In San Francisco,
we had a group of people called Bacchini, and their family
had built the Golden Gate Bridge. And in terms of riggers,
I could not have had or wished for a greater group of riggers.
I'm working with them again now in the Bay area. They took
a great pride in what they did. They kind of lived work. And
I was very, very respectful and happy we had them. Albeit,
I brought two people with me that I've worked with for 25
years from Germany to set the pieces, because these pieces
are down to a millimeter in terms of how they have to be placed.
And if they're off of the bottom an inch, they're off ten
inches at the top. So, you really have to pull these pieces
in and rig them in a way that has to do with a certain expertise.
And even though people can follow given plans, in order to
set a lot of my pieces, people have to be very, very familiar
with them. So I travel with a crew usually from Germany, two
people in particular.
ART:21:
That leads to me another general
question and that is: it seems to me you're living on an airplane
a good part of the year. Could you talk about the complexity
in your life of projects in different parts of the world?
SERRA:
Usually what I try to do when
I go on the road, is stay on the road, accomplish what I can,
either in terms of things being on the front burner and the
back burner, and then get off the road. I usually don't make
trips in and out of New York, in and out of New York. So,
I travel and then get off. When I was very young, I remember
watching Pancho Gonzalez and somebody asked him the same question:
How do you feel about the speed of being on and off the plane?
And he said, "If I'm making the shots I don't care." And I
think that's true. If you're traveling and it's fulfilling,
then it's fun. If you get knocked off your feet or something
goes wrong, then it's hard. And, often times when you can't
anticipate breakdowns, weather conditions, being held up for
days, then you just have to make the best of it. But, I pretty
much have been on the road since I've started. I've been on
the road for 30 years now, so I've learned to adjust. But
I think there are a lot of people who work everyday who are
on the road a lot.
