Richard Serra's dark magic descends on the Courtauld
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Version 0 of 1. London's Courtauld Gallery is a happy place. People row boats on glittering rivers, dry themselves after a nice bath or meditatively powder their faces. For this is one of the world's great collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art, and the light of Monet, Cezanne and their contemporaries suffuses its rooms with stardust. The US artist Richard Serra has just invaded this delicate environment like a black sun swallowing up the sky. Serra is renowned for making austere and intimidating abstract sculptures. His walls and elliptical labyrinths of steel confront and surround awestruck audiences. But Mr Serra also likes to draw. His latest works on paper have been made for the Courtauld and they strike up a powerful if disturbing dialogue with its fine collection. A lot has happened since Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed Jane Avril leaving the Moulin Rouge in one of the Courtauld Gallery's most compelling masterpieces. The 19th century saw its wars and revolutions but on the whole the light of the impressionists is the light of a prosperous, expanding, optimistic world. Richard Serra's drawings are like messengers knocking at Monet's door, telling of the violence and disasters to come. Blackness descends. Serra is a magician of the dark. His necromantic pictures are multilayered and rich in texture. Made by printing black litho crayon on to transparent mylar sheets, his works at the Courtauld create fascinating three-dimensional effects. Their depths and shadows remind me of the optical recesses of Monet's waterlily paintings. There is a subtletly here that more than justifies his visit among the masters. But the richness is that of ash. The subtlety is that of death. Serra's message to Monet is that the century of the Holocaust made it impossible for a serious artist to paint happy river scenes any more. He has reduced the world's colours to a mighty black, a black that is gorgeous yet terrible. Vortices of black swirl in space, mountains of black are heaped up. One of the first works I ever saw by Serra was a homage to the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. His new drawings, seen against the beauty of the Courtauld's 19th-century paintings, are tragic testaments to what art must be in our brutal age. The reason Serra is one the great artists of our time is that in a world of shallow cultural consumerism he bites at the hand that feeds him and forces a tragic sensibility on we who would rather fool ourselves. To tell that truth he blocks out the Courtauld's lovely light. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |