German Steelworks Soars with Serra

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The collector, who planned to buy the work after the Los Angeles show was over, turned out to be François Pinault, founder of Paris-based luxury and retail group PPR. Pickhan, who had never heard of Pinault, chauffeured the French billionaire around Siegen in his Volkswagen Golf. After Pinault expressed pleasure with the new work, "Serra said to me, 'We have to make more!' " Pickhan recalls. Serra named that first piece Pickhan's Progress.

In the years since, Pickhan has fabricated Serra pieces that can be found all over the world—at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; on the estates of private collectors such as Pinault; and of course at New York's MOMA. Pickhan's reputation has spread as a result, attracting other projects requiring artistic sensibility, such as the planned entranceway to a Naples subway station designed by British installation artist Anish Kapoor.

Such projects continue to have an effect on Pickhan's industrial projects. The company has often had Serra in mind when buying new machines, Pickhan says. Walking through the plant, he points to a mammoth 5,700-ton press he picked up used from a French military contractor. "When we got this we could do totally different sculptures," Pickhan says. At the same time, such equipment allowed Pickhan to take on bigger commercial jobs. The company recently leased space in a building that fronts a shipping canal, allowing production of even bigger forms that can be shipped only by barge.

Unexpected Applause

Pickhan, whose offices next to an auto-repair shop are decorated with Serra exhibition posters signed by the artist, has become something of an art connoisseur himself, at least of Serra's work. "He makes sculpture for people. He creates new spaces. That's what makes his work so interesting, " Pickhan says, as he walks a visitor through a circular Serra work in progress.

Friedhelm Pickhan has seen only a few Serra sculptures after they leave his premises but made it to New York for the opening of the MOMA show, which began in early June. He sounds both proud and astonished at the reception he got. "The people clapped and I had to stand up," he says with a chuckle.

Ewing is BusinessWeek's European regional editor.