Serra and Us

Abstract

Abstract Yve-Alain Bois discusses and describes the many essays that October editors and contributors have written about Richard Serra, particularly Rosalind Krauss, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Yve-Alain himself, Leah Dickerman (most recently), and Hal Foster (most abundantly). The article begins: “I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that no artist can be more immediately identified with October than Richard Serra, particularly during the journal's first decades. Several of its editors or editors-to-be wrote repeatedly about his work, in the journal and elsewhere, and he himself participated directly in the life of the publication via a lengthy interview, not to mention his unwavering financial support since issue 39 (Winter 1986). “In 1991, The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents appeared in the October book series; edited by Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk, it offered nearly three hundred pages of documentation concerning the legal battle waged (and lost) by the artist to prevent the destruction by the American government of the site-specific work it had commissioned for Federal Plaza in New York City (installed in 1981, it was dismantled in 1989). Needless to say, the October gang came en bloc to defend the work at the public hearing (the testimonies of Rosalind Krauss, Annette Michelson, Douglas Crimp, Benjamin Buchloh, and regular contributor Abigail Solomon-Godeau figure in the book). “In 2000, the first volume of the October Files appeared; edited by Hal Foster, it took Serra as its subject. Memorial tributes are an awkward genre in that they are almost inevitably nostalgic and take a narcissistic turn (“me and the great man”). But what if one were simply to commemorate the prolonged interaction of the journal's editors with Serra's work by chronologically recapitulating the various instances of their engagement? This will be done with pride, for sure, but also as a duty to forestall amnesia.”