Richard Serra — Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris
The major artist Richard Serra has passed away at the age of 85. He, who elevated sculpture to the level of event and left his mark on as many editions of Documenta in Kassel as on the Venice Biennale, who defied gravity beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais in an unforgettable edition of Monumenta (2008), is honored with a beautiful exhibition of prints at the Lelong & Co. gallery, imbued with his spirit of conquering matter, dark and full of life.
Richard Serra — Casablanca @ Lelong & Co Gallery from March 14 to April 30. Learn more Spectacular and delightful, the immersion into the depths of black by Richard Serra at the Lelong Gallery pays tribute to his work on monumentality and gravity, which combine in this pictorial work with rare clarity. The artist has indeed been developing an engraved work since the 1980s alongside the gallery, in which extends his forms’ crisis in space. A parallel movement more than a simple transcription, it extends his reflection on matter.
While his penchant for black is well known, this new exhibition at the Lelong & Co. gallery embodies a radicalism that makes it a physical experience. Six sheets of paper laden to their saturation point bear abstract forms and confront each other without revealing the true origin of the motif, as if each emerged from a part of an organism with regular lines but constantly defying parallelism. The same mystery is thwarted by the very title of the series; there’s no esoteric reinterpretation of the weight of light in the city of Casablanca but a simple playful homage to the eponymous movie.
Far from being confined to darkness, these variations reveal a marvelous light, paying a necessary homage to the master of black, Soulages, that shares the same sense of tonal vectorization about this color, becoming a living support for blending tones.
A great ensemble that, beyond technical prowess, testifies to the power of the sculptor’s gesture on forms of representation. Transferred to the walls, the mass becomes spectral and invites to a physical reflection on the depth of matter. Like a reminder of a history that precedes and extends us, perhaps a warning; all art is matter, and every composition adds to the world as much as it subtracts its surface to bring us closer to a quintessential source; an organic minerality waiting to be built.
