Customer Reviews

Richard Serra: Large Scale Prints By Richard Serra

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Richard Serra's works on paper are as beautiful and compelling as his sculptures, and so a new book about them is most welcome. This book is a catalogue for a traveling exhibition of Serra's large scale prints: it presents 36 of these in photograph and description, along with interesting short essays by Allison Kemmerer and Richard Axsom, foreword and a checklist. The prints themselves are wonderful, and this book includes newer material not found in the 1999 Catalogue Raisonné. This book is beautifully produced and very cleverly designed (my only concern will be keeping the brilliant white cover boards clean). But I have to wonder about the decision on size: it's certainly ironic that a book about these huge prints is so small-not quite 7 inches square, one of the smallest art books I have. The small size does have the effect of making these prints seem like rare gems (albeit black and white ones), reducing them down to their essence of shape, but I think a larger volume could have done that too and given more of a sense of scale. This little book is great, though, and has convinced me to brave the wilds of Notre Dame to see the exhibition in the fall.

I was just amazed by this show when we saw it at Notre Dame University a few years ago. I have found the the sledgehammer dullness of Serra's art really oppressive. For instance the massive Tony Smith sculpture now installed at the new wing of LACMA is proof that really giant sculptures can be invigorating. But Serra's works are like the weight of the whole world on your shoulders. The opposite of what an aesthetic experience should be, by definition, to my mind. This is why I was so surprised to enjoy the show at Notre Dame of Serra's/ I can only surmise that the delicacy of paper allows this man to bring to the fore whatever odd talent he has. Each one was powerful, and not enervating unlike his blinkered, grandiose vision in his big unfinished bowls of nihilism.