The Phillips Collects: Richard Serra

Richard Serra, Reykjavik, 1991

Richard Serra, Reykjavik, 1991, Paintstik over screenprint on Japan paper, 67 x 76 in., ed. 7/46, The Phillips Collection, Gift of Sid Stolz and David Hatfield. Photo: Rhiannon Newman

Reykjavik is a silkscreen created with oil-stick at Gemini G.E.L Editions, where Richard Serra (b. 1938) worked frequently during the late 1980s and the early 1990s, developing a process that gives these prints the weight and physical presence of his sculpture. Here, he begins with a single layer of flat black ink applied onto a specially treated paper in the areas to be coated with oil-stick. The rich quality of the work is the result of passing the viscous material through the screen and from using a textured roller over the surface of the print. Serra’s Afangar (1990)—a topological sculpture project on a small island near Reykjavik comprised of nine pairs of black basalt columns cut from local quarries and placed around the island’s periphery—was a source of inspiration for this series of prints. Working on the project prompted Serra to fill many notebooks with drawings, which were later transferred onto small etching plates. Serra turned to silkscreen to achieve on paper a sense of monumental landscape.

Detail of Richard Serra, Reykjavik, 1991

Detail of Richard Serra, Reykjavik, 1991. Photo: Kabrea Hayman

Director’s Desk: Dispatch from Berlin

While in Berlin to meet with an important collector, I had some time to explore in the city. Klein aber fein is how the Germans might describe this wonderful one-room exhibition (pictured below) of five massive lithographs shown at Buchmann Galerie, all by Richard Serra and done in Paris around 1990. The prints have such incredibly rich texture. It is hard to imagine the enormous litho stones he must have used to make these prints. This exquisite one-room show makes me reflect on the power of our intimate projects at the Phillips, of course.

Photos: Dorothy Kosinksi

Photos: Dorothy Kosinski

I visited galleries on Auguststrasse and discovered this elegant, sober, brick building from ca. 1930, designed by the Jewish architect Alexander Beer, an example of Neue Sachlichkeit architecture. It was built as a Jewish girls’ school. Beer died in 1944 at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944. During the last several years the building was restituted to the Jewish community and is filled with art spaces and a lively cafe…like the neighboring structures in this former East Berlin area that is being totally revitalized.

Recap of Fashion Week: Art + Fashion

In an earlier post, I discussed the connection between art and fashion in honor of Fashion’s Night Out.

For a quick art and fashion recap of the 2011 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, look no further than ARTINFO‘s roundup of art-inspired designs. Jason Wu continues his love affair with art in works inspired by graffiti artist KAWS; the Mulleavy sisters reminisce on their childhood discovery of Van Gogh; and, my personal favorite, Richard Serra-inspired works for Helmut Lang.

Megan Clark, Manager of Center Initiatives