Though The Trial of Tilted Arc is sometimes attributed to Richard Serra, the video was not directed by the sculptor, but by artist Shu Lea Cheang in collaboration with the Paper Tiger Television collective. Founded in 1981 by filmmaker DeeDee Halleck, Paper Tiger Television positioned itself as an activist alternative to mass media. Emphasizing a DIY aesthetic due to its limited resources, the channel maintained an ongoing relationship with video art, collaborating in its early years with Martha Rosler and Joan Braderman, and later, in the 2000s, with the band Le Tigre and Anthology Film Archives. [1]

In the mid-1980s, Paper Tiger Television became involved in the controversy surrounding Richard Serra’s monumental sculpture Tilted Arc. Installed in 1981 in Foley Federal Plaza, New York, the work had been commissioned by the General Services Administration (GSA) under the “Art in Architecture” program, the American counterpart to France’s 1% for Public Art initiative. Composed of a 37-meter-long curved band of Cor-Ten steel, the sculpture became the subject of a highly publicized debate whose intensity and legal ramifications mirrored those surrounding Daniel Buren’s Les Deux Plateaux (known as Buren’s Columns) in France around the same period. [2] In 1985, the appointment of a regional GSA administrator hostile to Tilted Arc led to a public hearing aimed at its removal, igniting widespread media debate. In 1986, Paper Tiger Television began documenting the controversy, filming the sculpture in situ, interviewing Serra in his studio, and above all, recording key testimonies presented during the hearing.

Statements by Serra and Judge Edward D. Re, one of the work’s most vocal opponents, play central roles in the video. While some negative testimonies are included, the majority speak in defense of the artist. [3] Among Serra’s supporters were prominent figures from the art world: critic Annette Michelson, art historian William Rubin, Metropolitan Museum curator Jessie McNabb, gallerist Ronald Feldman, and New Museum director Robert Buck. Notably, a number of artists also came to Serra’s defense. Naturally, many leading voices in monumental sculpture—Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt, Claes Oldenburg, and Tony Rosenthal—also lent their support. But so did key figures from the broader American art scene of the 1950s to 1970s, including, including Joan Jonas, Robert Ryman, Frank Stella, and composers Philip Glass and Alvin Lucier. [4] Lucier, whose compositions underscore the video, highlights the sculpture’s resonant acoustic properties—an observation that uncannily echoes the concerns of a security expert, who warns of the sculpture’s potential to reflect the shockwave of a terrorist explosion. This vast argumentative gap hints at the scope of the debate—and the difficulty both critics and supporters had in finding common ground.

Ultimately, the jury ruled in favor of the sculpture’s removal, offering no explanation for its decision. In response, Serra sued the GSA in 1986, citing First Amendment protections, but to no avail. An early version of The Trial of Tilted Arc, released that same year, urged viewers to write to President Ronald Reagan in defense of the sculpture. [5] The version held by the Centre Pompidou, longer and completed later, includes footage of the sculpture’s dismantling in 1989. In the final shot, filmed from the Foley Square Federal Building, the camera lingers symbolically on the trace left behind, a scar marking the physical and political impact of the Tilted Arc trial on public space. [6]

Perhaps no statement captures the spirit of this video—at the intersection of alternative media and public art—better than the one delivered by artist George Segal during the hearing: “If we start backing down on public rejections, we are in danger of establishing the same standardtdoor public sculpture that we have for television. We would be in a terrible state if our public sculptures were on the same level as a TV sitcom program.”

Philippe Bettinelli, 2021

Translated by Laurie Hurwitz

[1] Archives available at: https://papertiger.org/category/art/, accessed May 14, 2025.

[2] On the comparison between these two controversies, see Bernard Edelman and Nathalie Heinich, L’art en conflits: l’œuvre de l’esprit entre droit et sociologie (Paris: La Découverte, 2002).

[3] As Shu Lea Cheang recalls, this reflects the actual proportions—of the 180 people who testified during the hearing, 123 spoke in support of the work.

[4] Alvin Lucier does not appear to have spoken at the hearing itself; his statement, drawn from a letter, is read in voiceover in the version of The Trial of Tilted Arc held at the Centre Pompidou.

[5] This first version, in which Shu Lea Cheang is not directly credited as director, is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxyhgUAYvB4, accessed May 14, 2025. It includes a straight-to-camera interview with Serra recorded in Paper Tiger Television’s studios, later replaced by the studio interview featured in the second version.

[6] The sculpture was placed in storage, as Serra opposed any relocation of the piece from its originally intended site.