Richard Serra: To Lift, 1967, vulcanized rubber, 36 by 80 by 60 inches. Courtesy David Zwirner.
Richard Serra’s 1967 Verb List, a manifesto of “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process,” is a stand-alone artwork. But it needs to be experienced within a show like Zwirner’s, contextualized by the sculptures Serra made early in his career that turned his words into action. It’s hard to think about infinitives like “to roll,” “to heap” and “to bend” in the same way after seeing his 6-foot-long rolled lead tubes, planks of rubber leaning against a gallery wall or delicately balanced rolled steel slabs.