// boroughing //
Fall 2007
Serra's Labrynth
Marit Pearlman Shapiro
We were travelers on a pilgrimage. My sister shook her foot above the subway car's floor while my mom blinked her eyes furiously. Our little trio had flown almost 3000 miles from the west coast to witness this event. Now we were almost at our Mecca.
We arrived at our destination and excitedly joined the stream of people lining up to enter. A mumbling mass of murmurs echoed off the white walls as the line creeped into the building. With accomplishment and eagerness, my sister whispered, "I can't believe we made it."
We walked out into the garden, dodging chattering New Yorkers. The shadows of hundreds of leaves played over the faces of tall upright metal slabs as the sun's light bounced off Richard Serra's sculptures. The outdoor courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art was a tiny bit of calm separated from the raucous New York streets.
At once, all the burbling voices disappeared. I had entered a space all to myself. If the garden was the social hall, this was the inner sanctuary. That same solid hush that blankets the air when you walk into a room with stained glass windows was present. Though people moved silently together, this was a personal space, an individual, reflective experience. Serra should have designed churches.
I stood in the middle of one sculpture, its walls stretching up toward the sky, to the thin cheery blue that blanketed Serra's work. There was a fingerprint left here. A marking there. I wondered whether they were left deliberately by the artist, or if other forces of weather and time had created them. The cylindrical sculpture contained me, but with warmth. I felt safe and comfortable. I wondered if babies felt this way when wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket. I wondered why I was being so sentimental.
We went upstairs to the second floor. The room was crammed with sculptures, each a maze of wood that you could get lost in. There was a certain etiquette us museum-goers developed as we moved through the exhibit. Every opening into Serra's creations was large enough to allow only one person to pass at a time, and there were some collisions at the entrances. People going in, people coming out, and most importantly, people peering into the space within. In any other circumstance it would have felt like an invasion of space. Here, these were pacific intersections.
My sister stopped to chat with a security guard casually leaning against the wall, staring at the people staring. She asked the question that had been flickering through my thoughts as I peered around the massive structures. How did they manage to get them in here? I marveled at the image of cranes lifting the pieces through a hole where a wall used to be.
I followed a bald man and his artsy girlfriend as they wandered up the stairs and onto the final floor of the exhibition. They stopped in the doorway and then carefully paced a circle around the room. What were they doing? I peered in and saw the large metal rectangle on the floor. I started to make my own way around it when my mom stepped out onto it. It felt like such a violation. I glanced nervously around. Would anyone see our transgression? My mom laughed at my anxiousness. The sculpture, it turns out, was meant to break down the barriers associated with art. Serra wanted us to interact with his work, not to be afraid of it. Then a small boy pointed upward and we all craned our necks back. Up on the ceiling was another rectangle, just waiting to fall on us. The sculpture had two parts, and we were squished in between: sandwiched into awareness. Most of us would have missed it.
Though the garden had been silent, a hum was beginning to collect upstairs. My individual exploration had become a group activity, and now our trio was ready for our five o'clock snack. After my mom checked out the gift shop, of course.
We arrived at our destination and excitedly joined the stream of people lining up to enter. A mumbling mass of murmurs echoed off the white walls as the line creeped into the building. With accomplishment and eagerness, my sister whispered, "I can't believe we made it."
We walked out into the garden, dodging chattering New Yorkers. The shadows of hundreds of leaves played over the faces of tall upright metal slabs as the sun's light bounced off Richard Serra's sculptures. The outdoor courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art was a tiny bit of calm separated from the raucous New York streets.
At once, all the burbling voices disappeared. I had entered a space all to myself. If the garden was the social hall, this was the inner sanctuary. That same solid hush that blankets the air when you walk into a room with stained glass windows was present. Though people moved silently together, this was a personal space, an individual, reflective experience. Serra should have designed churches.
I stood in the middle of one sculpture, its walls stretching up toward the sky, to the thin cheery blue that blanketed Serra's work. There was a fingerprint left here. A marking there. I wondered whether they were left deliberately by the artist, or if other forces of weather and time had created them. The cylindrical sculpture contained me, but with warmth. I felt safe and comfortable. I wondered if babies felt this way when wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket. I wondered why I was being so sentimental.
We went upstairs to the second floor. The room was crammed with sculptures, each a maze of wood that you could get lost in. There was a certain etiquette us museum-goers developed as we moved through the exhibit. Every opening into Serra's creations was large enough to allow only one person to pass at a time, and there were some collisions at the entrances. People going in, people coming out, and most importantly, people peering into the space within. In any other circumstance it would have felt like an invasion of space. Here, these were pacific intersections.
My sister stopped to chat with a security guard casually leaning against the wall, staring at the people staring. She asked the question that had been flickering through my thoughts as I peered around the massive structures. How did they manage to get them in here? I marveled at the image of cranes lifting the pieces through a hole where a wall used to be.
I followed a bald man and his artsy girlfriend as they wandered up the stairs and onto the final floor of the exhibition. They stopped in the doorway and then carefully paced a circle around the room. What were they doing? I peered in and saw the large metal rectangle on the floor. I started to make my own way around it when my mom stepped out onto it. It felt like such a violation. I glanced nervously around. Would anyone see our transgression? My mom laughed at my anxiousness. The sculpture, it turns out, was meant to break down the barriers associated with art. Serra wanted us to interact with his work, not to be afraid of it. Then a small boy pointed upward and we all craned our necks back. Up on the ceiling was another rectangle, just waiting to fall on us. The sculpture had two parts, and we were squished in between: sandwiched into awareness. Most of us would have missed it.
Though the garden had been silent, a hum was beginning to collect upstairs. My individual exploration had become a group activity, and now our trio was ready for our five o'clock snack. After my mom checked out the gift shop, of course.
//Marit Pearlman Shapiro is a Columbia College sophomore. She wishes her dorm room were big enough to fit a Serra.