Film UbuWeb

Richard Serra (b. 1939) Hands Tied (1968) Hand Catching Lead (1968) Frame (1969) Television Delivers People (1973) Surprise Attack (1973) Boomerang (1974) Prisoners Dilemma (1974) Railroad Turnbridge (1976) Born in 1939, Richard Serra studied English literature at the University of California in Berkeley while working at a steel mill to earn a living. He went on to receive an MFA from Yale University where he studied with painter/theorist Joseph Albers. Living in New York, Paris, and Rome on the late 60s, Serra became acquainted with artists of the New York School: Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhart, and Frank Stella, as well as avant-garde composer Philip Glass. Associated with the emergence of post-minimalism and process art, Serra's lead splashing sculptures were included in The Warehouse Show at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1968, and Anti-Illusion: Procedures Materials at the Whitney Museum in 1968-both pivotal exhibitions that established a new discourse in the field of sculpture. Serra produced several films before making videotapes in the early 70s. His early works, including Television Delivers People (1973), Prisoner's Dilemma (1974), and Boomerang (1974), are structural examinations of the medium as a vehicle for communication. RESOURCES: Richard Serra in UbuWeb Historical