Monumental Richard Serra Sculpture from the 1990s to make its American debut at Gagosian New York
Gagosian has announced the US exhibition debut of Running Arcs (For John Cage) (1992), a large-scale sculpture by Richard Serra (1938–2024). The work has been exhibited only once before, more than thirty years ago, opening on September 12th, 1992, at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Germany. Running Arcs (For John Cage) will be on view at Gagosian’s 522 West 21st Street gallery, opening thirty-three years—to the date—after its initial presentation and remaining on display through December 20th, 2025.
Running Arcs (For John Cage) is composed of three identical conical steel segments, inverted relative to each other, installed in a staggered formation. Each panel is approximately 52 feet long, 13 feet high, and 2 inches thick.
RICHARD SERRA Running Arcs (For John Cage) September 12th–December 20th, 2025
Gagosian 522 West 21st St
Opening reception: Friday, September 12th, 6PM–8PM
About the artist
Born in San Francisco, Richard Serra lived and worked in New York and on the North Fork of Long Island. He studied English literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, after attending UC Berkeley, and went on to earn both a BFA and MFA in painting from Yale University, New Haven.
Serra began exhibiting with Leo Castelli in 1968, with his first New York solo show held at the Castelli Warehouse the following year. His first solo museum exhibition took place at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1970.
Over the decades, Serra’s sculptures and drawings have been the subject of numerous major exhibitions worldwide, including two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York—Richard Serra/Sculpture (1986) and Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (2007). He held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1977–78); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1983–84); Kunsthaus Zürich (1990); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1992); Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1997); Trajan’s Market, Rome (1999–2000); and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (2004), among many others.
In 2005, The Matter of Time (1994–2005), a suite of eight monumental sculptures, was permanently installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. For Monumenta 2008, he created Promenade, a major site-specific installation at the Grand Palais, Paris. In 2011–12, a major retrospective dedicated to his drawings traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Menil Collection, Houston.
In 2014, the Qatar Museums Authority organized a two-venue retrospective, and Serra’s East-West/West-East (2014) was permanently installed in the Brouq Nature Reserve, Zekreet. In 2017, the Museum Wiesbaden presented Richard Serra: Props, Films, Early Works; the Kunstmuseum Basel hosted a survey of his films and videos; and recent drawings were featured at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Serra participated in major international exhibitions including Documenta (1972, 1977, 1982, 1987), the Biennale di Venezia (1980, 1984, 2001, 2013), and multiple Whitney Annuals and Biennials (1968–2006). His accolades include the Leone d’Oro for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale (2001), the Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste, Germany (2002), the Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España (2008), the President’s Medal of the Architectural League of New York (2014), the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, France (2015), and the J. Paul Getty Medal (2018).
Since 1983, Gagosian has presented more than forty solo exhibitions of Serra’s work across the United States and Europe.
