Reykjavik

15 March 1989

The removal of “Tilted Arc”

The sculpture meets resistance from workers in the Federal building; after an eight-year campaign to remove it, “Tilted Arc” is taken down. Serra argued that the work was made for that site and that moving it meant destroying it, and said that if it were relocated he would deny his authorship and regard it as a “derivative work.”

1991

Borromini's church and the “Torqued Ellipses”

Visiting Borromini's church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, he mistakes the ovals of the dome and the floor for ones offset from each other and conceives a sculpture in that torqued form. In his studio he builds models from two wooden ellipses joined by a dowel, turns them at a right angle to one another and wraps a sheet of lead around the form.

1991 · Distinction

Wilhelm Lehmbruck Award