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Richard Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939, received his BA in English from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and then worked in steel mills to support himself. This early experience with steel would have a great effect on the work he was to do later as an artist. He received a BFA and a MFA in painting from Yale University in 1964, traveled to Paris on a traveling grant, and to Italy on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1966 he settled back in New York and began making wall sculptures from vulcanized rubber, one of which entitled Triangle Belt Piece, 1967, is in the Gallery’s collection. In 1968, he began using metals in his "prop pieces", large slabs of lead or steel balanced against one another of which Kitty Hawk is a good example. He has created many outdoor sculptures designed for specific places. One of these, Tilted Arc, installed in a public plaza in New York City in 1981, created a famous controversy when the public petitioned for its removal. After a highly publicized hearing, Serra lost. Tilted Arc was dismantled and was never relocated.
In Kitty Hawk, the defiance of the laws of gravity creates an illusion of lightness. The ironic reference in the title to Kitty Hawk, the town in North Carolina where the Wright brothers flew their first airplane, enhances that impression while also referring to the composition of the sculpture, which looks like a very simple airplane with wings, nose and tail. Kitty Hawk provides for a powerful psychological experience as well. When the viewer shares the space occupied by the sculpture, there is an undercurrent of danger as we contemplate what appears to be a very precarious support.
Richard Serra once stated, "Everything we choose in life for its lightness soon reveals its unbearable weight." This statement, by a controversial artist, could refer not only to the psychological dimension of works such as Kitty Hawk, but also to the barriers one experiences in life.