PHOTO Richard Serra's " T.E. Which Way Which Way?" is on display at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education now through Jan. 12 as part of “The Only Way to Hold a Weight: Richard Serra Prints from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation” exhibit. (Strode Photographic, Courtesy of Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Richard Serra was one of the late 20th century’s most prominent sculptors. But his prints constitute a sizable – and influential – body of work all on their own. It’s that work which will be on display at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in “The Only Way to Hold a Weight: Richard Serra Prints from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation” through Jan. 12, 2025.
The exhibit, guest curated by Reed College art professor Daniel Duford from the collections of Jordan Schnitzer and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, draws its title from a quote from Serra about his drawing practice.
“He considered black not as a color, but as weight,” Duford explained. Serra drew and printed exclusively in black, mirroring the often-monochromatic nature of his sculptures. “He talks about how these drawings are working in a way that they’re not site-specific in the way the sculptures are, but they are places where there’s a kind of bodily experience.”
The 18 pieces on display are among 142 of Serra’s prints owned by Schnitzer or his foundation. Schnitzer first encountered Serra’s print making in the 1990s, he said, and started building the collection. 
“I just saw his work and just started buying it,” he said. “These works on paper have that same movement and energy and weight and depth to the work, just as those big sculptures do.”
“Weight” is an apt word to describe any of Serra’s works, whether the room-specific (and often room-sized) sculptures. Only one piece depicts human form, a representation of a famous photograph of US military detainees from the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq that marked a rare detour into the overtly political for Serra. While some, such as his “Venice Notebook 2001” series or “Ishmael’s Edge” include thin, almost delicate shapes, many consist of solid, black, blocky shapes that dominate, if not fill, the frame. “Muddy Waters” takes this to an extreme – a six-feet by five-feet sheet of paper consumed almost entirely by a solid black rectangle – but its tilted edges and the texture of the process still invite the viewer in, particularly as it is displayed without glass. 
Much of Serra’s print work was done at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, where printmakers Jim Reid and Xavier Fumat worked extensively with the artist. 
 “He often mentioned to me that black did not detract from the work. You can make a pig look really pretty if you paint it really bright, right? But black allowed you to just see the work," Fumat explained.”
“He gives us a depth, a simplicity with these abstract shapes and forms,” Schnitzer said, “amidst the powerful black that just seems to envelop us in this aura of his making. That’s why he’s as good as he is.”
With his monochromatic palate, Serra’s manipulation of the printing process became one of the key ways he pushed his ideas through to the viewer. 
“In some cases, he would print maybe two or three layers on there, maybe a very dark blue-black, or something that’s just off black or transparent black, and they could build up layers,” Reid recalled of Serra’s early prints. “He was constantly changing whatever the matrix was going to be, and I think in the last 15 years, he really found his sweet spot, and that’s why he’s continued to make these pieces.”
While the sculptures and prints often spokes of similar themes in a similar language, Serra did not intend them to be approached the same way by the viewer.
“He didn’t like when someone would view a sculpture as a picture, because he wanted it to be a thing that you had to approach from multiple directions,” Duford said. 
“In his mind, I think each individual medium was its own thing, even though they could share visual clues,” Fumat added. 
Schnitzer’s art passion stems from his mother’s contemporary gallery in Portland and, through his foundation, has grown to encompass more than 22,000 artworks that have curated into 180 distinct exhibitions and have been additionally loaned out to more than 120 museums free of charge. This exhibition also includes a drawing workshop on Nov. 16, a curatorial talk on Nov. 21 and a curatorial walkthrough on Dec. 6, all hosted by Duford.
For more information about the exhibition and its associated events, visit ojmche.org.