Richard Serra - Monumenta @ Grand Palais

Yesterday I went to see the Richard Serra exhibit for Monumenta at the Grand Palais.

It was high on my must-do list this season, as I still can't stop thinking about his exhibit at the MoMA last summer, so I was hoping to have another dip into that atmosphere.

I enjoyed the work "promenade" that he did here in Paris, but found it much less powerful than any of the large-scale steel works from the MoMA expo. Clearly there was a huge challenge, and the space is really vast and over-the-top with the curves and curlicues. He did do a decent job of making you feel the height of the building and of changing perspective as you approached and distanced the 5 plates, but I still found it less interesting than I had hoped.

I'd imagined dragging my husband to see it (as I regretted a lot that he did not see the MoMA expo) but it didn't leave me with a need to see it again or share it, as the other had.

Still, a nice hour in the afternoon, and the Grand Palais space is pretty cool overall. And the weather was perfect for it - neither too hot nor too cold, which isn't often the case in that hall.