Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line

Despite 100 years of abstract, conceptual, modernist art, it is surprising that Richard Serra’s sculpture works as miraculously well as it does. I went to see the (now-closed, alas) exhibition of his latest sculpture at London’s outpost of the Gagosian Gallery. For the last few decades, Serra has been taking great sheets of Cor-ten steel and welding, folding and bending them into huge abstract shapes. Any description makes this seem abstract and bloodless, but especially since his Torqued Ellipses a decade ago, Serra has been making out of this the most sensual, sexy, joyous sculpture. Each new series is just a small tweak on the previous, from twisted ellipses to nested maze-like paths, to the latest narrow-waisted shapes, more organic than ever before. You walk through them, get lost in a labyrinth of metal, meeting other gallery-visitors along the way, caught up along with the giggling and squealing kids in the inexplicable, gorgeous pleasure of it all.