Field trip

To get to the Shift by Richard Serra from Toronto you have to drive north towards King City for fifty kilometers. It is on private property, owned by a developer that would like to tear it down and build mcmansions. I recommend approaching the site from the north-east corner on late September, just before harvest.

Richard Serra, Shift, 1970-1972 (43°55'13.3"N 79°30'39.6"W)

The sculpture is made of six concrete slabs 1,5 meters high and 20 cm thick, the length varying between 27 and 73 meters. In the summer of 1970 Serra visited the site together with Joan Jonas and determined that the position of the slabs would depend on the distance that two people could occupy while still in view of each other.

The sculpture allows the visitors to measure themselves against a landscape which is constantly changing. If you go back at the end of October, after the harvest, your experience of the site will be completely different. You will not have to make your way across the corn and you will be able to see the Shift all at once.

The topography of the site is also very important. The field is not flat and as the slabs appear or disappear into the ground your relation with the landscape changes. When the concrete is at eye level it feels like a protection but when is at ground level you are completely exposed.

Since 1990 the Shift is a protected cultural landscape under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Richard Serra, Shift, 1970-1972. Photographs Mariana Siracusa