From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
October 26 – January 12, 2025
High Res Images
Richard Serra (1938-2024) is best known for his monumental, rolled steel sculptures and architectural interventions. However, he maintained a vigorous drawing practice alongside the sculptural. Serra considered the drawings their own entities and not lesser companions to the sculptures. Serra’s prints similarly push the boundaries between two and three dimensions, creating a powerful interplay of form and space. This exhibition features 18 prints spanning his extensive career, showcasing his innovative use of black as a medium and a material that evokes a physical presence. The Only Way to Hold a Weight: Richard Serra Prints, is guest curated by Daniel Duford from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.
“All of us at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education are so grateful to Jordan Schnitzer and his family foundation for the opportunity to share these powerful works,” said OJMCHE Executive Director Rebekah Sobel. “Jordan Schnitzer’s lifelong dedication to collecting contemporary prints has benefitted not just OJMCHE and the Portland community, but museums across the country. Now with The Only Way to Hold a Weight: Richard Serra Prints, there is the opportunity to better understand one of the pivotal artists of a generation.”
Serra’s prints, much like his sculptures, challenge and engage viewers, inviting them to experience the tension, weight, and mass that define his work. Through this compelling collection, viewers witness the profound impact of Serra’s artistic vision and delve into the creative process of one of contemporary art’s most influential figures.
“The late Richard Serra was the greatest sculptor of our time! Who hasn’t experienced his massive COR-TEN steel creations? His works on paper are equally amazing. With the thick, sculpture-like surface of his prints and multiples, Serra is able to transform each image to defy time and space,” said ARTnews Top 200 Art Collector Jordan Schnitzer. “For over 25 years, Serra worked with print publisher Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles. Working with master printers James Reid and Xavier Fumat, they produced over 200 editions. We are fortunate to have over 150 of those Richard Serra editions in our collection.”
The Only Way to Hold a Weight: Richard Serra Prints, reflects what Serra once said: “I consider space to be a material.” With this he would begin to transform void into volume to create site-specific sculptures, drawings, and prints that would put artwork, environment, and viewer in active dialogue.
Black is the primary color of printmaking. And Serra uses only black, in part, because it alludes to nature less than other colors. Serra sees black more as a “property” than a “color”—as a material that absorbs, rather than reflects, light, and which “manifests itself as weight.” And he understands that weight is emotion.
About Guest Curator Daniel Duford
Daniel Duford is Visiting Professor of Art at Reed College and is Creative Director of Building Five in Portland, Oregon. His curatorial projects include the 2012 exhibition Fighting Men: Leon Golub, Jack Kirby, Peter Voulkos at the Hoffman Gallery at Lewis and Clark College, Co-Curator with Linda Tesner of Intersecciones: Havana to Portland (2016) and An Earth Song, A Body Song: Figures with Landscapes. Works from the Permanent Collection (2020) at Orange County Museum of Art. His work has been exhibited nationally including MASS MOCA, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, Orange County Museum of Art, Queer NY Arts Festival and the Boise Art Museum. He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2010 Hallie Ford Fellow and a 2012 Art Matters Grant recipient. His current writing can be found on The Whole Live Animal at danielduford.substack.com.
About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation’s contemporary art collection is one of the most notable in North America. The Foundation has shared its art with millions across the U.S. and internationally through groundbreaking exhibitions, publications, and programs. Founded by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Jordan D. Schnitzer—whose passion for art began in his mother’s contemporary art gallery in Portland, Oregon—the Foundation has organized over 180 exhibitions from its collection and additionally loaned thousands of artworks to over 120 museums at no cost to the institutions. Schnitzer began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in 1988 and today is North America’s largest print collector. His Foundation’s collection consists of more than 22,000 works of art, including a wide variety of prints, sculptures, paintings, glass, and mixed media works. To learn more, visit JordanSchnitzer.org.
About Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education explores the legacy of the Jewish experience in Oregon, teaches the enduring and universal relevance of the Holocaust, and provides opportunities for intercultural conversations.
