Frank Stella ‘Geometric Variations’ Paul Kasmin Gallery

A transitional body of Frank Stella’s paintings from the sixties and seventies is on display at Paul Kasmin Gallery. Coming in between his black painting from the fifties and his monumental three dimensional ‘paintings’ the artist made in the eighties, the work at Kasmin shows Stella breaking out of the ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-see’ mentality and inching towards the full fathom five of his later paintings-cum-sculpture. Stella’s fluorescent work signals the transformation sang by Ariel in The Tempest:

Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

As strange as his work became, the work at present retains the square format. Using the square, Stella explores the elastic nature of something that is essentially static. Effervescent, fluorescent color is displayed in ‘Double Mitered Maze’.  A ten foot double square with lines that lead in to the center, ‘Double Mitered Maze’ is a good example of how far Stella is able to travel within the square format. Verging into the monumental, Stella’s work, despite the limitation of form, moves into something rich and strange.

Frank Stella

Sacramento Proposal #3, 1978

acrylic on canvas

103 3/8 x 103 3/8 inches

262.4 x 262.4 cm

Frank Stella

Untitled, 1966

acrylic and fluorescent alkyd on canvas

63 7/8 x 128 inches

Frank Stella

Double Mitered Maze, 1967

alkyd on canvas

62 1/4 x 124 7/8 inches