It is interesting that Richard Serra, who is not short of offers of highly promising locations for which to make site-specific sculptures, accepted the Tate's invitation to do something in their domineering central hall - a space ostensibly built for showing sculpture but serving that purpose rather badly, partly because it makes the things put into it look as if they were lost at the bottom of a well, partly because its huge Ionic columns dwarf other forms in the same field of vision. For that matter, it is interesting that Nicholas Serota has ignored the space's bad reputation in restoring it to its original purpose and shape, this at some expense because of the need to strip away various accretions which had been added out of despair at the difficulty of showing sculpture there, as against certain kinds of painting - Picasso's Meninas series, for example - that have looked quite good on the walls.

LRB 17 December 1992 | PDF Download