Equal Rectangles, Richard Serra

From November 5, 2026

In the autumn of 2026, the Collection Lambert is launching an ambitious conservation and restoration program for Equal Rectangles (1986), a monumental work by Richard Serra.

Although Richard Serra is best known today for his monumental Corten steel sculptures, the American artist also developed a major drawing and painting practice starting in the 1970s. Through his Paintstick Drawings, he repurposed paintsticks (oil paint sticks composed of a mix of oil, pigment, and paraffin wax) to create vast, remarkably dense black surfaces.

Held in the Collection Lambert, Equal Rectangles fully embodies this direction of research. Consisting of two large linen canvases coated with oil paint and paraffin wax, then stapled directly to the wall (according to the artist’s instructions), the piece commands the room with a monumental presence. Through its apparent simplicity and radical execution, it engages in a dialogue with both the architecture and the viewer’s body.

Given its exceptional scale, unique technique, and material properties, this restoration project brings together a team of conservation professionals around a comprehensive plan for the work’s preservation, handling, installation, and future storage.

Select stages of the restoration process will exceptionally be presented to the public.

Richard Serra

Richard Serra (1938–2024) was an American sculptor and visual artist, widely considered a leading figure in contemporary monumental sculpture. Born in San Francisco, he funded his studies by working in steel mills—an experience that profoundly shaped his artistic approach—before studying fine arts at Yale University and turning to sculpture in the mid-1960s.

Initial experiments with materials like lead and rubber gave way almost exclusively to Corten steel. His iconic works, made of massive plates of raw, curved, or tilted steel, rely on mass balance and gravity without welding. By placing the viewer’s physical experience at the heart of his thinking, he transformed perceptions of urban and architectural space.

Acclaimed through major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, and the Monumenta event at the Grand Palais in Paris, Serra left a monumental legacy, epitomized by the permanent installation The Matter of Time at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He passed away at age 85 in New York State.