Five years ago, no one in their right mind would have used terms like user-friendly or playful to describe Richard Serra’s Cor-Ten steel sculptures. The tendency to think of the sculptor’s Minimalism only in terms of mass and gravity should end with this exhibition of nine recent large-scale works. Organized by MoCA director Richard Koshalek and the Guggenheim’s Julia Brown, it also might demonstrate the affinity between Serra’s work and that of Frank O. Gehry, the architect who designed the two venues housing the show. On the West Coast at least, it’s hard not to think of Serra’s recent sculptures, which twist through space and soar overhead, as industrial-strength takes on Light and Space fluidity. Sept. 20, 1998–Jan. 3, 1999; travels to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, spring 1999.

— David Pagel