Lecture on an American artist Richard Serra

Almaty Museum of Arts is launching a new lecture series dedicated to the artists represented in our collection. We begin with Richard Serra (1938–2024), one of the most influential sculptors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries — an artist who transformed industrial materials such as lead, rubber and steel into monumental works. His sculpture Junction greets visitors on the museum’s first floor.

Serra’s relationship with metal began early: his father worked as a pipe fitter in the shipbuilding industry, and Serra himself spent his college years in steel mills. Although he first studied English literature at the University of California, art had always been his true focus. He later earned and got a degree in Master of Fine Arts in painting at Yale University.

After time spent in France and Italy on fellowships, Serra moved to New York in 1966. His career quickly accelerated: by 1968 he was exhibiting regularly in Europe and the United States and began a long collaboration with the Leo Castelli Gallery. One early landmark exhibition involved splashing molten lead into the corners of the gallery to explore how materials behave in space.

As Serra’s ideas expanded, so did the scale of his work. He created his famous “props” — steel sheets pinned or leaned together, held only by gravity — and by the 1970s was producing massive curved steel forms designed for specific sites. His lifelong fascination with how sculpture shapes space made him a leading figure in public art worldwide.

Join our upcoming lecture to explore Serra’s practice and discover how his art developed throughout his remarkable career.