In the 1960s Richard Serra became friends with the “Anti-Form” artists, and under their influence he reconsidered the nature of the work of art: its material, its form, its space. In 1967, he created his Verb List, a list of 84 action verbs (to fold, to support, to scatter…) that specified the processes, whether manual or industrial, that he intended to use in the fabrication of his sculptures. In this piece the sheet of lead – a material that the artist appreciated for its malleability – has been “rolled, encased, sawed” into a hollow, log-like form. The work is tautologically reducible to the process, specified in advance, that gives it its title. He made a larger version of this sculpture in 1968 with the same title.

Rolled, Encased and Sawed comes from the '7 Objects/69' portfolio, a collection of seven minimal and conceptual objects by various artists, published by Tanglewood Press, Inc., New York, 1969.