'Fernando Pessoa'- Richard Serra Exhibition, Gagosian Gallery London, a photo by Loz Flowers on Flickr.
Serra Fernando Pessoa
'One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is teach us how to suffer more successfully. Consider Richard Serra's Fernando Pessoa. It is encouraging a profound engagement with sadness. The outward chatter of society is typically cheerful and upbeat ... But Serra's work does not deny our troubles; it doesn't tell us to cheer up. It tells us that sorrow is written into the contract of life. The large scale and overtly monumental character of the work constitute a declaration of the normality of sorrow ...
More importantly, Serra's work presents sorrow in a dignified way ...
In effect, it says, "When you feel sad, you are participating in a venerable experience, to which I, this monument, am dedicated. Your sense of loss and disappointment, of frustrated hopes and grief at your own inadequacy, elevate you to serious company. Do not ignore or throw away your grief."
...
Many sad things become worse because we feel we are alone in suffering them. We experience our trouble as a curse, or as revealing our wicked, depraved character. So our suffering has no dignity; it seems due only to our freakish nature. We need help in finding honour in some of our worst experience, and art is there to lend them a social expression.'
p. 26
Alain de Botton, John Armstrong
Art as Therapy
The School of Life
