Mozarabe

1971

Richard Serra American, 1939 - 2024

On View

College for Creative Studies, Josephine F. Ford Sculpture Garden Wing

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About the Artwork

With these muscular compounds, Richard Serra aims for urban majesty in a non-imitative, non-symbolic way. It is the counter-balancing of the square plates that harnesses their downward force and keeps them poised in a tenuous equilibrium. The viewer experiences Serra’s steel intrusions as potentially threatening, though harmless if left untouched.

“Mozarabe” refers to a type of stone building with angled apertures similar to the ones in this piece. Those buildings can be found in Spain, where they go back to the Middle Ages when Arabs were gaining ground on Christians and their two cultures were precariously balanced.

Title Mozarabe

Artwork Date 1971

Artist Richard Serra

Life Dates 1939 - 2024

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Weathering steel

Dimensions Overall: 97 1/4 inches × 24 feet 1 3/4 inches × 147 1/2 inches (247 cm × 7 m 36 cm × 3 m 74.7 cm)

Classification Sculpture

Department Contemporary Art after 1950

Credit Founders Society Purchase with funds from W. Hawkins Ferry

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 81.694

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Provenance

1981-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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