Tilted Arc was a controversial public art installation by Richard Serra, displayed in Foley Federal Plaza in Manhattan from 1981 to 1989. It consisted of a 120-foot-long, 12-foot-high solid, unfinished plate of rust-covered COR-TEN steel. Advocates characterized it as an important work by a well-known artist that transformed the space and advanced the concept of sculpture, whereas critics focused on its perceived ugliness and saw it as ruining the site. Following an acrimonious public debate, the sculpture was removed in 1989 as the result of a federal lawsuit and has never been publicly displayed since, in accordance with the artist's wishes. Commissioning and design In 1979, the United States General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture program decided to commission a work of public art to grace the open space in front of a planned addition to the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan, New York City. Taking the recommendation of a National Endowment for the Arts panel of art experts, the U.S. General Services Administration administrator gave the commission to sculptor Richard Serra, a fine-arts graduate of Yale University who at age 40 was one of the leading minimalist sculptors. The contract for the commission required Serra to give the work to GSA, making it property of the United States. The post-minimalist artwork was designed and constructed in 1981. Exemplifying Serra's minimalist, conceptual style, Tilted Arc was a solid, unfinished plate of COR-TEN steel, long, tall, and thick. As its name suggests, it was slightly tilted. Placed in the Federal Plaza, the work bisected the space, blocking views and paths of those who frequented the plaza. Serra said of the design, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step, the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes." The steel is self-oxidizing and is designed to develop a natural rusted appearance over time. For Serra, an important part of the work's meaning was that it would interact with the commuter passing through the plaza, a location usually passed through quickly on the way to somewhere else. This would subsequently become important as the basis for Serra's designation of the work as site-specific. Reactions Commissioned in 1979, Tilted Arc immediately attracted intense negative feedback, prominently from Chief Judge Edward D. Re, as well