''Shift'' is a large outdoor sculpture by American artist
Richard Serra
Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
about 30 kilometers north of
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
. The work was commissioned in 1970 by art collector Roger Davidson and installed on his family property. ''Shift'' consists of six large concrete forms, each 20 centimetres thick and 1.5 metres high, zigzagging over the northwest portion of the property's rolling countryside. In 1990 the Township of King voted to designate ''Shift'' and the surrounding land as a protected cultural landscape under the '' Ontario Heritage Act''. The property is now owned by a Toronto-based developer who announced in 2010 that they appeal the decision of the Ontario Conservation Review board with plans to develop the property for housing, necessitating the removal of ''Shift''. In 2013 the Township of King voted to prepare a bylaw to designate ''Shift'' as protected under the Ontario Heritage Act, preventing its destruction or alteration.
History
In the summer of 1970 Serra and artist
Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Art in America'':
What I wanted was a dialectic between one's perception of the place in totality and one's relation to the field as walked. The result is a way of measuring oneself against the indeterminancy of the land. As one follows the work farther into the field, one is forced to shift and turn with the work and look back across the elevational drop. From the top of the hill, looking back across he valley, images and thoughts are remembered which were initiated by the consciousness of having experienced them.
The land was owned by the family of Roger Davidson, an art collector. Serra approached Davidson with an idea to use the land for a site-specific sculpture. Davidson agreed in exchange for two of Serra's smaller sculptures. Ownership of the work was undetermined and as there was no contract, Serra understood that the work would be preserved on the land by the Davidson family and that the land would not be sold and would be accessible to the public.
In 1974, the land, registered in Davidson's mother's name, was sold to Hickory Hill Investments, a
land developer
Land development is the alteration of landscape in any number of ways such as:
* Changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing
* Subdividing real estate into lots, typically for the purpose ...
. Land registry records made no mention of an artwork on the property. The Ontario government listed the land as protected under the
Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act The Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, officially known as the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2001, is a conservation plan for land situated on or near the Oak Ridges Moraine in Ontario, Canada. The legislation was enacted by the Government ...
as a green space, while ''Shift'' is protected under Canadian copyright law as Serra is a landowner in
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
. The Toronto-based developer announced in 2010 planned to develop the property for housing. ''Shift'' and the surrounding land was designated a protected cultural landscape under the Ontario Heritage Act. In 2013 the Township of King voted to prepare a bylaw to designate ''Shift'' as protected under the Ontario Heritage Act, preventing its destruction or alteration.
Description
''Shift'' is made of concrete, the first of two concrete works Serra has created. He considers concrete to be too architectural for sculpture and usually works in steel. In both cases, Serra used concrete owing to the architectural scale of the works and the horizontal emphasis. Each of the six concrete sections is 60 inches in height and 8 inches in width while the length varies from 90 feet to 240 feet. These were built based on a land survey that Serra had commissioned. The sculpture is divided into two sections each containing three segments.
''Shift'' was ignored for the most part by locals since the Davidsons sold the land. Residents thought it was a leftover foundation and the work survived in obscurity until talk of developing the land in the 1990s brought attention to the work's importance. The developers did not realize the value of the work when the land was purchased. Serra's studio estimates that a commission of this nature would now be valued at between US$7 and US$8 million.
Although protected from development, the sculpture is the target of vandalism and environmental exposure. In 2018, the sculpture was found to have cracks and scratches, as well as the "encroachment of weeds". No maintenance is performed on the sculpture.
Notes
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Bibliography
* Krauss, Rosalind E. "Richard Serra, a translation." ''The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths''. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1985. 261-276.