RICHARD SERRA

‘Casablanca’ (2022) is a suite of six graphic works produced in close collaboration with master printer Xavier Fumat at the Gemini G.E.L. workshop in Los Angeles. These prints are spectacular in their size and sculptural quality, which can only be appreciated by seeing them in person. The artist and the workshop have pushed the limits of what a large, thick sheet of paper, almost entirely covered in black matter, can bear. Playing with the idea of weight and balance on paper, these monumental etchings are presented in a frame designed by the artist, without glass or plexiglass; the first five of them measure 153 x 168 cm (roughly 5’ x 6’), and the sixth 183 x 213 cm (roughly 6’ x 7’).

More than their size, it is their exceptional material that impresses and even fascinates. Highly textured, made with a mixture of hand-applied oil-based ink, etching ink and silica, they are, from a sculptor’s perspective, another facet of the ‘outrenoir’ (‘beyond black’) experiment conducted by the painter Pierre Soulages.

Serra began work on this project in early 2020, just before the first pandemic-induced lockdown, which seriously disrupted the workshop’s activity. As the work was carried out intermittently, the trial prints were sent back and forth to the artist in New York until the final proof of each print was signed. Obtaining the quantities of ink and paper required for the project presented its own challenges. Consequently, from start to finish, this project took almost three years to complete. Here it is, shown in Paris for the first time.

Press release courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.