Steely apple of his eye

LACMA trustee and donor Eli Broad talks to Suzanne Muchnic about his favorite work in the inaugural exhibition at BCAM: Richard Serra’s ‘Band’

I have followed Richard’s work for many years. But I was really blown away by the exhibition he had at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I thought “Band” was the best work in the show, and I was pleased to be able to buy it for LACMA.

There is nothing like Richard’s work going on in sculpture in the world. I think, without any doubt, he is the most important living sculptor in the world today, and this is his best work ever.

I’m not sure I have the ability to express why I feel so passionately about it, other than that I have seen so much of his other work. First of all, his ability to torque steel was a great breakthrough. Not only is this work torqued, but each part is linked with other torqued pieces. We have a four-piece work in our yard at home, but this is so much more advanced, far more than the work he did for the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

We also gave one of Richard’s works to UCLA, a “Torqued Ellipse” that’s outside the Broad Art Center. That’s an interesting work, but if you compare it with “Band,” “Band” is really a triumph in so many ways. It’s a great experience to walk through it and around it. I am very proud of the fact that it will be permanently at the L.A. County Museum of Art.