STANFORD, CA.- In three weeks, the sculpture Sequence by distinguished American contemporary artist Richard Serra will arrive at the
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University as a loan from the Doris and Don Fisher Collection. The work will remain on view at Stanford until it is presented as part of the inaugural installation of the Fisher Collection in the expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 2016.
Sequence, which measures 67 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 13 feet high, is composed of contoured steel and weighs more than 200 tons. Considered one of Serras greatest achievements, the work will be on view outdoors for the first time since its creation in 2006. Sequence was previously shown in the exhibition Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2007, and subsequently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 2008 to 2011. Transporting it from Los Angeles to Stanford University requires a dozen wide-body flatbed trucks and specialists in the rigging of objects on this massive scale.
The work of sculptor Richard Serra (born 1939) challenges the divide between architecture and sculpture and requires the participation of the viewer to engage its extraordinary spaces. Sequence is composed of two interlocking figure eights, which will be installed on the Cantor Arts Centers north grounds by late July. The viewer enters through one of the works two openings and can wander through inner and outer steel plates. The curvilinear walls slant, creating a vertiginous and disorienting experience for the visitor who traverses the interior. The second floor of the Cantor Arts Center provides an overview of the installations progress and then of the work itself.
Sequence augments a distinguished collection of sculpture on the Stanford University campus, including 40 modern and contemporary works by Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, Charles Ginniver, Andy Goldsworthy, Jacques Lipschitz, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Beverly Pepper, George Segal, and a score of other artists. In addition, 20 works grace the Rodin Sculpture Garden on the south side of the Cantor Arts Center, and Rodins famous Burghers of Calais are in Memorial Court, at the entrance to the Main Quad. The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden presents another 40 works in stone and wood, carved in 1994 by 10 visiting Kwoma and Iatmul artists from the Sepik River area of northern New Guinea.
To experience Sequence, visitors must enter the Cantor Arts Center to gain access to the north grounds.