Richard Serra Drawings

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new drawings by American artist Richard Serra, the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in Hong Kong.

Richard Serra is among the leading artists of his generation. Known for his large-scale, site-specific sculptures, the artist has consistently produced drawings throughout his decades long career. Since 1971, the artist has employed black paintstick (compressed oil paint, wax, and pigment) to produce drawings that resolutely defy any metaphorical or emotive associations, yet which manifest the notions of time, materiality, and process that characterize his work.

On view at David Zwirner will be new drawings originating in works that were first presented in Serra’s 2017 exhibition at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Describing the process by which these works are made, Neil Cox notes, “Serra spreads his material, which might include one or more types of black [paintstick, etching ink, and silica] onto a table. A sheet of robust handmade paper from suppliers in Japan and India is then laid on top of the pigments and, with a steel block [and the weight of his own body] Serra applies pressure to the sheet in a structure—or better, a vector—that is not preestablished but is always, once grounded by that first stroke, pursued as consistently as possible. The process depends on achieving even pressure across the surface, sensing the marking, through the movement of the hand, through embodied memory and visual tracking over the blank white sheet. […] Once the process is felt to have reached its end [...]—then and only then is the paper lifted from its bed of black matter.”¹

¹Neil Cox, “The Shape of Feeling,” in Richard Serra: Drawings 2015-2017. Exhibition catalogue published for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (New York/Göttingen: Gagosian/Steidl, 2017) pp. 12-13.

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