There is yawning gulf between drawing and sculpture, between the presence of a sheet of paper and that of a full-bodied object in space.  Sculptor Richard Serra’s drawings from the early 1970’s to the present, on exhibit now at the Met, reach across that divide.  There are drawings that are imagistic, offering views of objects.  There are drawings that are diagramatic, sketching configurations for sculptures.  There are drawings that are architectural, huge paint-covered linen panels stapled to the wall, that play against the gallery floor, wall and ceiling.  And, most thrillingly, there are drawings that are so thickly encrusted in eddies and streams of paint that they become sculptures themselves.

Each type of drawing has a different power.  The sketches are the least compelling.  While they depict forms clearly they’re unrelated in spirit to Serra’s sculptures, which are so densely material.  (There is one stunning exception, a rendering of the “Tilted Arc” that, in four thick strokes of paintstick, captures all of that immense, looming figure.)  It’s heartening to see all the drawings together.  They show the sculptor grappling with the properties of a form that, up until the 1990’s, seems to elude him.  (One rather desperate series from the 1970’s, “Forged Drawing,” consists of hubcap-sized slabs of steel that are coated with painstick and then hung on the wall.)  But when Serra gets it right, his drawings have all the viscuous sensuality of a Rothko canvas, only with a greater sense of weight.  These drawings have no space in them, they’re all stuff.