“In comparison to his lithographs, the silkscreens Serra has created since the mid-1980s are characterized by a considerably greater density and depth of color. If silkscreens usually reveal a uniformly smooth and even surface, the sheets of this group of works surprise through an astonishing structuring of the layers of black. Velvety dry areas contrast with encrustations of oil crayon, which veils and furrows enliven the black plane. This surface structure, completely untypical for the silkscreen, is the result of an elaborate printing process that goes beyond the conventions of the genre. In a first printing step a black ink is applied to paper through the screen with the conventional technique. Then the printer, following Serra’s instructions, pulls a specially prepared oil-crayon block (paintstick) in long strokes over the cleaned screen, and with sufficient force presses the viscous black color onto the paper that rests below.
This manual reworking of the previously printed planar form is repeated as often as necessary until the lower black layer of ink has consolidated with the layers of paintstick above to create a deep, saturated black in whose surface the fine structure of the screen remains visible. The materiality of the surface of each individual print is controlled by Serra, and within an edition a different number of working steps is frequently necessary to achieve the desired result. In this way, each of the few prints of an edition differs through the traces of its individual making from all the rest. With conscious consideration of the source of the silkscreen as a technique for stenciling and screen printing, Serra creates not classical graphics but rather “multiple monotypes” or even a sort of multiple drawing through the use of techniques for the printing of graphics. The advantage of such newly defined silkscreen technique rests for him essentially in the fact that the process of printing can be controlled, the executing hand and controlling eye remaining in conscious coordination.” – Silke von Berswordt-Wallrabe, Richard Serra Prints Catalogue Raisonné, 2008, p. 30
