Artist Richard Serra, whose monumental abstract sculptures transformed museums, public spaces and even entire landscapes, has died aged 85. The American sculptor died from pneumonia at his home in New York on Tuesday. Across his six-decade career, Serra established himself as one of the most celebrated artists in postwar America. Working primarily with steel — often twisted into evocative shapes and oxidized to achieve a distinctive deep orange palette — Serra was known for large-scale sculptures designed not only to be observed but to be explored, experienced and felt. His site-specific creations, whether carved into a grassy field or permanently installed in the Guggenheim Museum’s outpost in Bilbao, also invited viewers to engage with their surroundings in new ways. A tribute posted to the Guggenheim’s Instagram account on Tuesday said that Serra’s work “reshaped our perceptions of space and form and redefined the connection between viewer and artwork.” The statement added: “Beyond the sheer scale and grandeur of his creations, Serra’s artistic vision was rooted in a deep understanding of the relationship between art, architecture, and the environment.” Born in San Francisco, California in 1938, Serra was exposed to his signature material early in life: The son of a shipyard pipe fitter, he worked at steel mills to support his studies at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara. In the early 1960s, Serra studied painting at Yale and befriended many of the medium’s modern greats, including Philip Guston and Robert Rauschenberg, though he seemed to yearn for a third dimension and materials beyond paint or canvas. After studying and traveling in Europe, Serra moved to New York and began working on sculptures made from rubber and fiberglass. His early minimalist experimentations with metal saw him splashing molten lead into the corners of rooms and precariously leaning steel objects against one another. His sense of scale grew even more ambitious in the 1970s — and so, too, did the settings he was invited to work in. Forging or rolling steel into plates and curved slabs, he began producing larger works that reimagined the spaces in which they were installed. As a result, Serra started attracting high-profile public commissions. Among the best known was the 120-foot-long “Tilted Arc,” installed at New York’s Federal Plaza in 1981 before being dismantled eight years later following complaints (and a public hearing) over its impact on public space. Critics disliked the fact that pedestrians had to circumvent the sculpture in order to cross the plaza. But this epitomized Serra’s approach to art: His work was intended to engage, not be admired from afar. (SD-Agencies) Words to Learn 相關詞匯 【委約創作】wěiyuē chuàngzuò commission a formal request to produce something in exchange for payment 【繞過】ràoguò circumvent find a way around an obstacle 周二，美國雕塑家理查德?塞拉在紐約家中因肺炎去世，享年85歲，他的大型抽象雕塑改變了博物館、公共空間甚至整個城市景觀。 塞拉擁有長達六十年的職業生涯，是戰后美國最著名的藝術家之一。他主要使用鋼材創作那些著名的大型雕塑 —— 它們扭曲成讓人難忘的形狀，并經過氧化處理，呈現出獨特的深橙色調。這些雕塑不僅用來觀賞，更是為了讓人探索、體驗和感受。他為特定地點創作的作品，無論是雕刻在草地上，還是永久放置在畢爾巴鄂古根海姆博物館的前面，無不在邀請觀眾以全新的方式與周圍的環境互動。 古根海姆博物館的Instagram賬戶周二發布了一份聲明來致敬藝術家，稱他的作品“重塑了我們對空間和形式的認知，重新定義了觀眾與藝術品之間的聯系”。聲明還說：“其創作規模宏大，塞拉的創作理念植根于對藝術、建筑和環境之間關系的深刻理解。” 塞拉1938年出生在加利福尼亞州舊金山，很早就接觸到了他的雕塑材料：他是船廠管道安裝工的兒子，曾在鋼鐵廠打工賺錢，為他在加州大學伯克利分校和圣巴巴拉分校接受的教育付學費。20世紀60年代初，塞拉在耶魯大學學習繪畫，并結識了菲利普?古斯頓和羅伯特?勞申伯格等許多現代繪畫大師。 在歐洲學習和旅行之后，塞拉搬到了紐約，開始用橡膠和玻璃纖維制作雕塑。在他早期的極簡主義金屬實驗中，他將熔化的鉛潑灑到房間的角落里，將鋼制物品堆疊在一起，看起來岌岌可危。20世紀70年代，他的作品變得更加雄心勃勃 —— 他也被邀請到更知名的地點創作。他將鋼材鍛造或軋制成鋼板和弧形板，開始創作大型作品，重新構想安放這些作品的空間。 塞拉逐漸收到邀約創作著名的公共雕塑。其中最著名的是120英尺長的 《傾斜的弧》，1981年安裝在紐約聯邦廣場，八年后因其對公共空間的影響遭到投訴（并舉行了公開聽證會）而被拆除。批評者說作品妨礙通行，因為行人必須繞過雕塑才能穿過廣場。但這正是塞拉藝術創作方法的縮影： 他的作品旨在觸發互動，而不是讓人從遠處欣賞。 (Translated by Debra) | 