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Richard Serra

Rifts

April 6–May 25, 2018
Grosvenor Hill, London

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Installation video

Installation view Artwork © Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view Artwork © Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Mike Bruce

Installation view

Artwork © Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Mike Bruce

Works Exhibited

Richard Serra, Triple Rift #3, 2018 Paintstick on handmade Japanese paper, 9 feet 3 inches × 22 feet (2.82 × 6.71 m)© Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Rob McKeever

Richard Serra, Triple Rift #3, 2018

Paintstick on handmade Japanese paper, 9 feet 3 inches × 22 feet (2.82 × 6.71 m)
© Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Rob McKeever

Richard Serra, Quadruple Rift, 2017 Paintstick on handmade Japanese paper, 9 feet 2 inches × 26 feet 10 inches (2.79 × 8.17 m)The Menil Collection, Houston, Purchased with funds provided by Louisa Stude Sarofim© Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Rob McKeever

Richard Serra, Quadruple Rift, 2017

Paintstick on handmade Japanese paper, 9 feet 2 inches × 26 feet 10 inches (2.79 × 8.17 m)
The Menil Collection, Houston, Purchased with funds provided by Louisa Stude Sarofim
© Richard Serra/DACS, London, 2018. Photo: Rob McKeever

About

I use black because it is a color that doesn’t transport elusive emotions.
—Richard Serra

Gagosian is pleased to present Rifts, an exhibition of recent drawings by Richard Serra.

The Rifts get their name from the distinctive white shapes—elongated triangles—that punctuate their otherwise unrelenting tarmac blackness, and perhaps from the geological term for a rent in the earth’s surface caused by moving tectonic plates. These sharp-edged triangular rifts are negative shapes, the white of the blank paper. An invention in drawing but one demanding their own rigor, they happen at the junction of two sheets of paper.

The stringent intelligible structures of the Rift Drawings obstruct us from seeing their white divisions expressively as other kinds of rupture—psychological, historical, ontological. Yet minimal metaphors of drawing remain: tension, balance, presence, space. The imposing scale and gross materiality of the Rifts hover just long enough on this border, perhaps, to make us more conscious of the operations of metaphor in our relationship to drawing.

Read more

Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Winter 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022

The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.

Richard Serra: Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Alina Ibragimova

Richard Serra: Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Alina Ibragimova

Violinist Alina Ibragimova performs Bach’s Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1 in G Major: Adagio (BWV 1001, c. 1720) from within Richard Serra’s sculpture Transmitter (2020) at Gagosian, Le Bourget. Organized by Bold Tendencies, a nonprofit organization that commissions artists to produce site-specific projects and present performances, in collaboration with Gagosian, this recorded performance took place on May 8, 2022 before a live concert of Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time, 1941).

Richard Serra: Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Mario Brunello

Richard Serra: Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Mario Brunello

Cellist Mario Brunello performs Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major: Prelude (BWV 1007, c. 1717–23) within Richard Serra’s sculpture Transmitter (2020) at Gagosian, Le Bourget. Organized by Bold Tendencies—a nonprofit that commissions artists to produce site-specific projects and present performances—in collaboration with Gagosian, this recorded performance took place on May 8, 2022, before a live concert of Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time, 1941).

Black square

From Richard Serra: Trevor Noah’s Message Against Racial Injustice

In response to enduring racial injustices and the recent widespread civil unrest, Richard Serra urges people to watch this video commentary by Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show.

Richard Serra, Hands Scraping, 1968, film still.

The Art of Perception: Richard Serra’s Films

For eleven years, from 1968 to 1979, Richard Serra created a collection of films and videos that felt out the uncharted phenomenological boundaries of the medium. Carlos Valladares explores a selection of these works.

The cover of the Fall 2019 Gagosian Quarterly magazine. Artwork by Nathaniel Mary Quinn

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2019

The Fall 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Sinking (2019) by Nathaniel Mary Quinn on its cover.