Last weekend, VoCA went out to King City, just north of Toronto, to look for Shift, Richard Serra’s 1970-72 concrete sculpture that lies almost buried in a field.
Richard Serra’s Shift, 1970-72. Image: Scott Barker
After mapping it on Google Earth, and figuring out more or less what the closest road was, we parked our car, hopped the fence and headed confidently toward a non-descript ‘mound’ in the distance.
After negotiating what felt like miles of soy fields (we skirted the edges, not wanting to disrupt the crop) and narrowly avoiding a cleverly disguised marsh, we found it.
Richard Serra, Tilted Spheres at Pearson International Airport, Terminal 1, Toronto.
Image: wikimedia.org
3 arcs of concrete, set up opposite another three. It was a beautiful day, and the concrete had been left so that it was almost covered in tall grasses. Nonetheless, there was something magical about knowing that we were all alone with a great earthwork.
Of Shift, Serra has written: “The intent of the work is an awareness of physicality in time, space, and motion…The work establishes a measure: one’s relation to it and to the land.”
Richard Serra’s Shift, 1970-72. Image: Scott Barker
Last year, Serra told the Star’s Peter Goddard – HERE – that his subsequent work has direct links back to Shift, which was commissioned by collector Roger Davidson.
There’s some great reading on the sculpture HERE that we found thanks to Tyler Green over at MAN. Read his notes on Shift HERE.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...
14 comments ↓
Great pictures….what is it like in the Wintertime?
Your readers might be interested to check out the AGO catalogue – Structures for Behaviour – published in 1978 for images of Shift (p.5 and pp 14 – 15) in earlier times. Locating the site (without aid of GPS) and being present when the latter photos were taken was a most exhilarating and memorable afternoon for me! I walked the whole length, animal droppings, dead twigs and little snakes notwithstanding. The silence was exquisite! Go visit it. A neglected artwork in Canada!
Click this link to see a nice photo of Shift in wintertime:
http://slowpainting.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/richard-serrarobert-smithson-continuum/
I tried albeit not very thoroughly to find that piece. My wife’s parents live in Aurora so we pass King City all the time. (when we lived in Canada) Next time home I am finding it dammit!
It may be easier to find in the winter…when you can walk directly across the fields.
Good job finding this piece, Andrea! Seems like a challenge to locate it. The photos are cool too.
It is so great that you are unearthing (ooo, kind of a bad pun, sorry) all of these art treasures that are so close to home! I had no idea this even existed!
Please, Art God, make Richard Serra and his tedious sculptures go away forever. Amen
Thank you so much for posting some recent pictures of this incredible piece!
I’m an architect from Sweden and recently returned from an extensive funded research pilgrimage through the US south west hunting down land art. My funding wasn’t sufficient to allow my travels to extend into Canada, but I will be travelling to Toronto for the wedding of a friend in a week which may just provide me the opportunity to finally experience Shift in person.
Do you, or anyone reading this page, have directions to the artwork from Toronto? Is it at all possible to arrive there by public transport? Any and all tips would be greatly appreciated and can be sent to me at lehonk@hotmail.com!
Best wishes,
Henrik
http://www.yorkregion.com/article/100273
A recent article in the local paper on Shift.
Thanks Carol. This is of particular interest: “One of the things that it does do is when you walk it measures your distance in relation to the landscape so it allows you to understand the shift in elevation as you’re walking because there’s no set horizon there,” Mr. Serra said.
I live about 10 kms away, so I’m going to make a point in finding it. Sounds like the perfect thing to do on a bright winter day.
Here is another recent blogspot on the piece by a local politician:
http://kingcentric.ca/?p=1
If i were the farmer and had to plow around that thing, I’d be seriously pissed off.
the sculpture is at king vaughan road and dufferin
google map it and you can see the sculpture.
you have to cross 1.5 farm area things.
it’s neat.
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