Shapes Tour, Part Two

After walking through Richard Serra's steel sculpture My Curves Are Not Mad, we went into the special exhibition Richard Serra: Prints.

First, we sat in the middle of the room and looked all around us.  Everyone was invited to share one word that describes the artworks, with the challenge of not repeating what was already said by a classmate.  What words come to mind as you look at the artworks in the background of these photographs?

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Next, students selected their favorite work of art and sketched it.

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Next, students were challenged to transform their sketches into something else.  Did the shape remind them of an animal, plant, place, object, or something else?  Afterward, they shared their drawings with a partner.

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To complete our Shapes Tour, we talked about the artist Richard Serra. Richard Serra is best known for making large-scale sculptures like My Curves Are Not Mad.  What many people don't realize is that he has been making prints almost as long as he has been making sculptures. In the exhibition Richard Serra: Prints, we saw several ways that Serra experimented with different materials, different sizes, and different processes of making prints.  To make his prints, he works with the Los Angeles-based print workshop and studio, Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited).  Watch a time-lapse video of a Richard Serra print being made by Gemini G.E.L. in 2012 below:

Different artists follow different steps to make their artworks. This is called the creative process. Richard Serra begins by making a model made of wood or metal. Sometimes, Serra draws his sculptures after they are completed. He says this helps him to re-see the finished sculpture. He might stand next to the sculpture or sketch it from high above in a cherry picker. Some of the prints in the exhibition were made from drawings of his sculptures.

We finished the tour by looking at a few prints in the exhibit along with photographs of the sculptures that inspired them.

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