Homecoming: ‘Seri Tai’ Lands at La Bella Vita
November 26, 2019
From 40 tons of marble cut from Italy’s Apuan Alps to a massive yet buoyant work of public art in a transforming Taiwanese cityscape, the monumental Seri Tai has finally arrived home. Conceived as the centerpiece for architects Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel’s La Bella Vita, Seri Tai is a truly global sculpture, a work made by an American sculptor with a universal sensibility for a Milanese-style residence in Taichung, Taiwan.
“One of the most exciting opportunities in life is to create something imaginative of lasting value and meaning,” says Richard, “resulting in deeply experiential environments which challenge and enrich the lives of those who experience it.” Seri Tai was designed to harmonize its surrounding built environment, a focal point amidst water, stone, glass, and greenery. Painstakingly lifted and lowered into place by an installation crew of roughly a dozen, the sculpture’s white Carrara marble is positioned atop a glassy pool of water, where its infinitely spiraling form springs forth to offer a meditation on time and nature. Richard likens the marble’s curvature to a benevolent eddy, a welcoming invitation to the viewer.
“I can only equate it to a child growing up,” Richard says of nurturing the work from idea to installation. For him, the bittersweet intensity of Seri Tai‘s full circle journey will be channeled into more time in the studio — and so a new life begins.