“Black is a property, not a quality. In terms of weight, black is heavier, creates a denser volume, holds itself in a more compressed field. It is comparable to forging. Since black is the densest color material, it absorbs and dissipates light to a maximum and thereby changes the artificial as well as the natural light in a given room. A black shape can hold its space and place in relation to a larger volume and alter the mass of that volume readily.”
—Richard SerraExecuted in 1986 on an imposing scale, Richard Serra’s Pasolini powerfully engages with space and mass to tap into fundamental sensations and challenge our understanding of perception. A large rectangular block has been thickly applied with impenetrable, matte black paintstick, occupying the lower two-thirds of the paper. Drawing space towards it, the flatness of this black mass is paradoxically illusory, acting as both void and mass within its environment. Reminiscent of the shaped canvases of Ellsworth Kelly or The Black Paintings by Frank Stella (1958-1960), the present work disrupts visual perception by emphasising its presence in physical space. In this way, Pasolini is a supremely elegant yet monumental example of the tension between vacuum and presence that lies at the centre of Serra’s complex oeuvre.
Richard Serra’s black paintstick works on paper have been a crucial part of his practice since the 1970s. Made using compressed oil paint, wax and pigment, these works were often created as reflections of and on his sculptural pieces whilst remaining uniquely independent. Born in San Francisco in 1938, Serra studied English literature at the University of California where he also worked in steel mills to support his education. He later studied painting at Yale and moved to New York, established in the post-war period as the centre of the global avant-garde. Serra emerged as part of a Post-Minimalist generation of artists who built upon the legacies of artists such as Donald Judd and Robert Morris whose work emphasised the interaction of the body with the art object as the most important factor in its experience. Inspired by John Cage’s radical composition 4’33 (1952) – where the orchestra remains silent for the duration of the song to allow the audience to hear the ‘music’ of the everyday – Minimalist artists reduced art to simplified geometries and aesthetics, which opened the viewer to their own sensory experiences. Richard Serra took this to new heights in his sculptures. Rejecting the commercial materials used by his predecessors, he opted for more industrial mediums such as raw iron and steel to create large-scale monolithic forms. Carving the environment to his will, Serra used these to transform both outdoor and indoor places into a physical experience by enhancing the space itself to elicit different modes of perception. At its core, Serra’s practice pioneered new ways of experiencing the physical world around us and connecting art with both mind and body.
Richard Serra, Pasolini, 1985, Galleria Stein, Milan, and collection of the artist. Artwork: © Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2024 The present work on paper, Pasolini, is directly related to Serra’s 1985 sculpture of the same title. This consists of two blocks of forged steel placed seventeen inches apart from one another. These works reference the Italian poet, film director, author and actor, Pier Paolo Pasolini, considered a defining intellectual of the twentieth century. Born in Bologna in 1922, Pasolini was known for directing films such as The Decameron (1971) and The Canterbury Tales (1972); in 1975, he was brutally murdered in a crime which remains unsolved. Perhaps referencing Serra’s personal admiration as a filmmaker himself or intended to represent tombstones, the nature of the tribute remains ambiguous. Both the steel sculpture and paintstick drawing contrast positive and negative space to intensify the viewer’s corporeal experience. However, Serra also creates a culturally contextual framework for this encounter in what Eva Schmidt has described as ‘a catalyst, opening space for association [. . .] one and the other are clearly emphasised together with their relevant unique, incomparable qualities’.i Pasolini serves as an important example of Serra’s compelling treatment of medium which speaks to the unmatched ability of art to engage with the subjective.
i Eva Schmid, Richard Serra. Prints, Druckgrafik, Drawings, Zeichnungen, Düsseldorf, 2008, p. 14
Condition Report
Description
View our Conditions of Sale.
Provenance
Galerie m Bochum, Bochum
Private Collection, Paris (on permanent loan to the Musee d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Etienne)
Private Collection
Baronian Francey, Brussels
Blondeau & Cie, Geneva
Galeria Nieves Fernandez, Madrid
Christie's Private Sales
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2018Exhibited
New York, Galerie Maeght Lelong, Richard Serra: New Drawings, 28 March–26 April 1986
Humlebaek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Richard Serra: Drawings, 5 September–5 October 1986
Bochum, Galerie m Bochum, Bestandsaufnahme V, 3 June–30 September 1987Literature
Hans Janssen, ed., Richard Serra: Drawings 1969-1990, Bern, 1990, no. 308, p. 248 (illustrated, p. 184)
Richard Serra: Weight and Measure Drawings, exh. cat., The Drawing Centre, New York, 1994, p. 22 (illustrated)
Property of a Renowned Private Collection
143
Pasolini
paintstick on paper
sheet 121.5 x 178 cm (47 7/8 x 70 1/8 in.)
Executed in 1986.
Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000
Simon Tovey
Director, Head of Day Sale, London
+44 7502 428 688
stovey@phillips.com
Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale
London Auction 11 October 2024
150
This lot is no longer available.
211
This lot is no longer available.
