Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Richard Serra's House of Cards

build the impossible house of cards
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Building a structure using 52 playing cards is a difficult and demanding task, requiring steady hands along with precision patience and perseverance, but it's usually accomplished on a domestic scale.

The proposal of creating Richard Serra's House of Cards is based on that principle, but in order to comprehend the idea fully some understanding of the work of Richard Serra is required.

To generalise, Serra places in a stable position large pieces of rolled plate steel on one of their edges. These are physically impressive pieces and if you have not been in their presence, this is a good description of one of them:

"The contemplative quality of “Intervals” is discarded in “7 Plates, 6 Angles” (2013), the largest sculpture on 24th Street NYC. The work’s seven plates are eight feet high, forty feet long and eight inches thick. They are arrayed in a zigzag pattern across the gallery floor, their adjoining edges aligned with extraordinary precision. The resulting vectors, which alternately compress and expand the space between the walls, thrust the plates forward with uncompromising force. You feel not so much dwarfed as shoved aside."

My idea is to construct a house of cards only using the same type of steel plates as employed by Serra.

A suitable wind protected location would be the first step in the endeavour.

Several powerful tower cranes would be required to lift and position the steel plates and hold them securely while the next one is balanced in place. As the entire structure is dependant on zero tolerances, this would have to be achieved with total precision, and be both difficult and fraught with danger.

Once fully constructed, coming within the clearly marked "collapse event radius" would represent an action of extreme hazard and dire warnings would be posted. Permanently installed cameras will record the inevitable eventual falling down of The Richard Serra's House of Cards.

xenzag, Feb 22 2021

Serra at the Gagosian 2016 along with John Cage https://gagosian.co...2016/richard-serra/
[xenzag, Feb 22 2021]

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       When you get 4 walls up, you could slip inside and secretly tack weld a few seams. Nobody would know, and you could still display your signs of death and danger.
whatrock, Feb 23 2021
  
      
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