Richard Serra's landmark Shift: Still unprotected

Outside Toronto, an early, iconic Richard Serra earthwork remains endangered.

David Anderson of the King Township Sentinel reports today that while the King City council is leaning toward designating Richard Serra's Shift (1970-72) a protected site under the Ontario Heritage Act, a developer is playing hardball, hard-to-get and every other obstructionist card in his toolbox. The King City council is giving the developer until Nov. 30 to come up with a resolution or the council will act. Even if the council imposes a heritage designation on Shift, public access is not assured. [Photo: Shawn Micallef. More here.]

As I noted here in January, 2008, Shift has a fascinating history. Serra considers it a pivotal work: "To me it was a breakthrough piece," Serra told the Toronto Star. "You can find many pieces (by others) which came after Shift. They have direct links back to that piece."

Perhaps because Shift is outside the United States and perhaps because Serra made it in concrete and not his trademark core-ten steel, it's not as well-known as earthworks in the American West or Serra's other landscape interventions, such as this one at Storm King. The Storm King piece, titled Schunnemunk Fork and made 20 years after Shift, is descended from it, as is Sea Level (1989-96).

Also notable: Shift is the latest important earthwork to be threatened by development. For several years now MAN has chronicled industrial threats to Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Arguably the first contemporary earthworks, created by Dennis Oppenheim and Michael Heizer in the East Bay hills near Berkeley, Calif., were covered by subdivisions several decades ago.  

Related: Christopher Knight says that Shift is "a pivotal work in the history of contemporary sculpture." An aerial photo of Shift, the Google Satellite version of same (above, right), a nice Flickr stream of photos of Shift in winter, more Flickr of Shift in spring, Shift after the harvest. Serra explains how he and Joan Jonas found the site in the summer of 1970. A King City resident tells a great story about how he found Shift and came to admire it. Earlier this month Andrea Carson of View on Canadian Art visited Shift, tells the story and shares great pics.