Gemini G.E.L. is pleased to announce the release of a series of six new works by Richard Serra titled “Casablanca.” Serra continues his close collaboration with Gemini Master Printer Xavier Fumat and his team, creating highly textured editioned works made with a mixture of hand-applied oil stick, etching ink and silica. Unsurprisingly, as Serra is known for pushing the limits of printmaking, the works are monumental: five of them are 6-feet in scale, and the sixth work is even larger, measuring 7-feet in width.
It’s hard to call these works “prints,” for none of them passed through a press. Instead, two layers of the oil stick, etching ink and silica mixture were applied to enormous sheets of Japanese handmade paper made especially for the project, and each layer required weeks to dry before the subsequent layer could be applied. The surfaces in the Casablanca series are thicker and more richly textured than any of Serra’s previous oil stick prints, and each impression weighs nearly 20 pounds. And the shapes, filling nearly the entire sheet, are as dynamic, elegant and sensuous as anything Serra has made.
