// YES! //

Thank god I read the NYTimes with a passion - I didn’t have any clue that Richard Serra had a large scale installation @ La Nef du Grand Palais in Paris starting today and running through June 15.

Steven Erlanger covers not only Serra’s work “Promenade” but also contextualizes it within the French Culture Ministry’s work with the massive Grand Palais space in a series of installations called “Monumenta”. Anslem Kiefer was the first artist asked to work with the space (NYT coverage).

I always love hearing how an artist approaches a site specific commission, Serra’s take:

“First, you have to figure out scale,” he said. “I was overwhelmed by the space and wasn’t exactly sure what to do. But I realized you have to deal with the entirety of the space — to think otherwise was to kid myself.”

In addition, although I love experiencing a work for myself and taking away my own impressions, I always love understanding what the artist intended and then comparing it against my own interpretation. Ernlanger notes, “He wants people to experience the art in a particular time and setting: “It’s about apprehension, how you apprehend the space and the piece,” he said. “It’s part of the experience of walking around the space in which the art appears — you implicate yourself in the space, and the experience is in you, not in the frame or on the wall.””

The wonderful news is that instead of staring longingly at pictures online @ Flickr - I’ll be able to go see this work in person in a bit over two weeks. I’ll be in Paris for a bit @ the end of the month and this is a must see.

More on Serra here and here and here.

UPDATE: In my overzealousness, I didn’t finish reading the article before I posted… turns out there Serra’s work “Clara-Clara” has been re-installed in the Tuileries as well.

Pictured a Serra work in progress (his works usually start in ferry manufacturing facilities due to both size and material choices - cor-ten steel).