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Uploaded 2/7/03
Frank Stella
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 29 April–31 May 2003.
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, 8 May–18 June 2003.
Two new exhibitions of new work by Frank Stella
recently opened in London and New York. The Bernard Jacobson Gallery
showed works named after, and inspired by, key archaeological sites
in ancient Anatolia, the seat of neolithic civilisation from 7000-6000
BC while the Kasmin Gallery exhibited the 'Bamboo Series'. Both
sets of new work are energetic metal wall constructions. They stand
as tall as 12 feet high and are made of industrial materials. Stella,
in fact, describes these sculptures as paintings. In his own words,
'A sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere'.1
These works are wiry and tangled and, although the materials used
are not costly traditional ones, they were still very expensive
to fabricate.
Although the exhibition at Bernard Jacobson's Gallery was small
in terms of the number of works on show, it was an arresting experience.
At 66 years of age, Stella continues to create innovative and exciting
work. One of the greatest artists of his generation, Frank Stella
is the only living American artist, other than Jasper Johns, to
have been the subject of two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York. He was only 34 when the first was held in 1970,
but the exhibition showed the brilliant and accomplished young career.
The second retrospective in 1987 showed Stella's dramatic departure
from the revolutionary abstract painting that had established his
reputation, to the wall reliefs and 'aggressively baroque constructions'
made in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, through the 1990s, Stella explored,
among other fields of thought, the American myth of Moby Dick in
a series of 'fully volumetric' reliefs.2 The recent exhibitions
are a continuation of these various preoccupations. However, where
'Stella claimed that his work was devoid of references to the outside
world … his new sculptures seem admirably entwined with lived
experience'.3
In the 1990s, Stella worked on completely 3D sculpture and architecture.
He also returned to painting on canvas in a big way; some works
were up to 40 feet long and 12 feet high. Dramatic, colourful, at
once chaotic and controlled, these brilliant works are profoundly
moving and technically accomplished. Public sculptures during this
period were also massive. Architectural in scale, Stella used a
great variety of media and techniques for their construction. He
was concerned with putting 'art back into architecture itself'.
Architecture can't fully represent the chaos and turmoil that
are part of the human personality, but you need to put some of
that turmoil into the architecture, or it isn't real.4
In 'Stella's Dilemma', the introduction to Frank Stella
at Two Thousand: Changing the Rules, Bonnie Clearwater writes
about the paintings, sculptures and architectural projects of the
1990s.
The initial impression of Stella's recent paintings, sculptures,
and architectural projects is overwhelming, and far exceeds the
effect of anything he produced in the past. With the bravado of
urban graffiti, these modern icons deliver a visual impact that
seduces viewers into surrendering completely to their magnetic
power. At the same time the intricate composition endows these
works with an intimacy discovered in the large Color Field paintings
of Mark Rothko. It is easy to get lost in the shapes that subdivide
the surface of Stella's paintings, sculptures and buildings, and
to roam their real and illusionary spaces. These creations are
as chaotic and tumultuous as the "human personality"…Out
of this chaos, Stella imposes an order that transforms the viewing
of these works into as real an experience as one could have before
a painting, sculpture or building.5
Frank Stella is a giant in American art and while it was an unexpected
treat to see his new work on show in the Jacobson gallery, it prompted
one to imagine a full scale retrospective at Tate Modern where the
vast sculptures could be seen in the Turbine Hall and the superb
40 foot paintings could transform the gallery spaces above.
Frank Stella is not only an artist whose innovative and productive
career seems still to hold much in store; his articulate and original
writings form an important archive for the study of art in the 20th
century. He has a broad and educated knowledge of art history and
a wide range of interests which include Hiberno-Saxon illuminated
manuscripts, abstract Expressionism, the writings of Denis Diderot,
and the impact of Chaos theory on contemporary art.6 He is also
an extremely amusing commentator. A brilliant and articulate artist,
Stella's account of his visit to the famous prehistoric caves at
Lascaux in 1999, conveys the understanding and fascination he has
with history and with the artistic process.
I found it hard to imagine, and then, even having actually seen
it, I still found it hard to believe that Palaeolithic painting
is easily the equal of the best Renaissance painting... Now having
thought it over, I am struck by how the confidence and looseness
of abstract painting at the end of the century can help us match
their successes… The grandeur was manifest in the touch and
scale of the drawing which was surprisingly like a sooty, spotted
impressionistic painting. That is to say that close up the black
outline is not a wide brushed line but rather a defining edge
made up of many large black spots. It is hard to tell if the spots
were made by daubing with a brush or sprayed on as though blown
through a mouth-held tube, or both. Either or anyway, I was struck
by the sophistication of the technique and the spectacular effect
of its development.7
The works on show at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery are named after
specific archaeological sites but are not representations of place.
The techniques and materials used, such as sand casting and found
objects, are suggestive of the archaeological process. The resultant
wall sculptures are made from rusted metal and polished aluminium.
They are mounted on a ring, which allows them to be rotated and
displayed at any angle. Stella works on different scales, both in
painting and sculpture, with consummate ease. Recently he produced
a nine metre sculpture, commissioned by the National Gallery of
Art in Washington. In January 2002, it was installed outside the
Gallery's East Wing and hailed by the Director as, 'one of
the great sculptures of our age'. He has also been working
on a number of architectural projects including a museum in Germany.
Although they are yet to be built, these designs show Stella at
ease in a range of challenging and ground breaking art forms. Tate
Modern, please!
Stella recently said, 'I want to make exalted art. A successful
image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there'.
Stella has abandoned Minimalist art in favour of an art that engages
with many aspects of life. In his recent work, there are very many
allusions made in terms of the process of art, references to myth,
history, personal experience and the points at which individuals
are touched by another realm of existence altogether.
References
1. Deborah Solomon, "Frank Stella's Expressionist Phase", The New
York Times, May 4, 2003.
2. BonnieClearwater, "Stella's Dilemma", Frank Stella at two thousand:
Changing the Rules, Selected Writings by Frank Stella, Museum of
Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2000 p.7.
3. Solomon, op.cit.
4. Frank Stella, quoted by Clearwater, op.cit., p.7.
5. ibid, p.7.
6. ibid, p.5.
7. Stella, "Staying Loose", p.117.
Dr Janet McKenzie
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