The Matter of Time

Over the years Serra has expanded his spatial and temporal approach to sculpture and has focused primarily on large-scale, site-specific works that create dialogue with a particular architectural, urban, or landscape setting. Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time is composed of eight sculptures commissioned from Richard Serra. Snake was made for the inauguration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997 and in 2005 it was joined by seven sculptures to create the site-specific installation The Matter of Time, Serra’s most complete rumination on the physicality of space and the nature of sculpture. In The Matter of Time the gallery is part of the sculptural field and Serra arranged the works deliberately in order to produce different effects on the movement and perception of the viewer. Shifting in unexpected ways as visitors walk in and around them, these sculpted forms create a dizzying, unforgettable sensation of space in motion.