out-of-round X, 1999/2008

Richard Serra’s edition out-of-round X is a powerful embodiment of his investigation into weight, surface, and process. Based on his out-of-round drawing series, the print captures the dense materiality of the original medium – black paintstick – through a specialised printing technique that evokes the same tactile intensity. In the original drawings, Serra applied oil stick through a window screen onto paper laid flat on the floor, using gravity and compression to build up irregular, weighty surfaces. As Serra explained, “the compression of the materials is achieved with a gravitational load that is bearing down on them.” That same sense of physical force and accumulation is present here: the black form is not a perfect circle but one shaped by pressure and resistance, surrounded by a textured halo of uneven edge. In this way, the print doesn’t merely reproduce a form – it reconstructs a process, inviting the viewer to sense the presence of matter, movement, and time.
Schellmann Art published this print for Kunsthaus Bregenz on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition Richard Serra: Drawings – Work Comes Out of Work, 2008.