Page 49 - Studio International - February 1968

earliest manifestations. Perhaps the best example Facing page juxtaposed sequences. Stella refuses orthodox
of conflicting aims lies in the work of Robert Top, Frank Stella Installation shot November 1967. harmonies, but he substitutes a kind of chaotic and
Delaunay. He wanted both to speak of a meta- Leo Castelli, New York wilful pattern which, when it gets too loose even
physical vision of cosmic unity, and to speak of a for him, he sets in order by painting large areas of
Bottom, Installation shot, 'Homage to
pure sensuous experience that he characterized as rich blacks.
Marilyn Monroe', December 1967
`l'ordre coloré.' He wanted to paint 'rhythms with- In the best work, which contains a kind of mad
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
out end' and also, light as a symbolic, unifying fugue of reds and orange-reds, the weights and
force in the universe, with all the metaphorical Below, de Kooning Marilyn Monroe 1954 balances occur mainly in the shape rather than the
associations that calls to mind. He braced himself oil on canvas, 50 x 30 in. colour. Still, because these are high-keyed and
to confront the nature that his contemporaries in Coll: Mr and Mrs Roy Nevberger relatively pure colours, there is a visual excitement
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
philosophy and science had dissolved into pure that cannot be matched in his other paintings. A
energy, while clinging instinctively to another rather witty art nouveau interlace occurs here—per-
more commonplace and solid nature within which haps a commentary on the 'moderne' tradition.
he felt more sure. This constant return to the Because of the complicated overlap and interlace,
familiar made it possible for a poet to respond with Stella is working in the grand manner, and pro-
recognizable imagery, as Apollinaire did when he duces an admirable machine. He certainly can
wrote : straddle large spaces with consummate assurance.
`La fenétre s'ouvre comme un orange In the weakest work, his impulse to break out is
Le beau fruit de la lumière.' seen in the way he skewers and bends shapes,
Despite these vestiges of extrinsic associations in sometimes fanning out from a vertical axis, so that
Delaunay's paintings, they enter modern art his- they produce a half-hearted illusionism. Not even
tory as abstractions verging on purely formal or the shape of the canvas can rescue the lack of
purely sensuous experiences. The dynamic image decisive intention apparent in this work.
of the disc rotating in infinity registers primarily in
the realm of pure abstraction. The shapes and
Stella is really grappling in a highly intelligent, if
colours are what we remember.
not yet intelligible manner, with the central
As the decades pass, the shapes invested with so
problems of twentieth-century abstraction, and he
much metaphysical hope in their day, become
commands my full respect. I can't say the same for
simply the means of making painting. They are
Kenneth Noland at the ANDRE EMMERICH GALLERY,
taken for granted. They are the vocabulary of
whose recent work takes a minor problem and
straight-talking picture-makers who have long
aggrandizes it. Noland is certainly affected by the
since emancipated themselves from the problems
procedures of modernism. It would be hard to
of 'content'.
imagine his twenty-foot-long, horizontally striped
canvas in any other setting but this elegant gallery,
Yet, the problems cannot be completely exor-
and from here to the stairwell of some august
cized, as I think the new paintings in Frank Stella's
museum.
exhibition at the CASTELLI GALLERY show. These
The paintings are all horizontal. They are all
large, strident, powerful, and well-wrought ab-
longer than a single glance can take in. They are
stract 'machines' are among the most challenging
all based on the repetition of the horizontal bound-
paintings Stella has presented. He is professional
ary. And they all depend on the trivial pleasure of
to the highest degree. No one could fail to admire
recognizing infinite extension by having to experi-
the way he handles large and intricate composi-
ence it physically. This idea has been abroad for
tions. Or the vigour he brings to his compositional
many a year, which is not to say that it is used up.
motifs. Yet, finally, one is left with an impression
of intrinsic conflict. Stella seems determined to But Noland unfurls his canvases with such ease; he
stick to his aesthetic, which casts out every con- paints them in such lovely stripes; he makes such
sideration but the painting as a self-contained By shifting a vertical axis sufficiently, or by over- a crisp, nineteenth-century awning-like composi-
tion of white with thin stripes; he allows the en-
object among objects. But on the other hand, he lapping an incomplete arc just a bit away from
semble to be so warmly embracing, so easy to take,
seems, at present, driven by an impulse to explode symmetrical logic, Stella is able to satisfy his need
that I wonder if he ever really ponders the kind of
that strict canon, and introduce ambiguous chal- to diversify and break down the object as object.
problems implicit in abstract painting today that
lenges to his own code. These objects do not rest easy. They are on the
bother Stella and a few other good painters so
This conflict appears not so much in the particular move in perplexing ways.
much.
shapes he chooses for his large compositions. For There has always been a tendency in Stella's
instance, a large circle flanked by two half-circles paintings, even those charcoal, rectilinear paint-
reads quite easily, since it recalls early Renaissance ings, toward a radiating compositional scheme. Moving to a far less serious matter: there have
altarpiece schemes. Even a large circle with an He centres his vision and then works outward. By been, and I suppose will continue to be, exhibitions
extruding half-circle presents no startling problems using circles, half-circles, and on occasion, warped based on themes of a folksy or amusing nature.
since the composition clearly embraces the space triangular shapes, he is stressing this radial posi- They seem to be quite popular with artists, who
of the wall, and the radiation of the circles is tion. At the same time, he is acceding to the con- don't hesitate to work by assignment in many
logical and, finally, quadrilaterally read. ventions long since established in abstract art. But cases. Not that the good old masters didn't do the
The conflict emerges, rather, within the compo- would it be possible to do otherwise, given the same, but most of them did sooner or later chafe at
sitions themselves, and especially, in terms of the familiar vocabulary of forms ? the necessity. They looked forward to their rich old
colour. Stella is seeking unexpected variations in To avoid so easy a scheme, Stella has brought his age when they could paint to please themselves. Or,
his circular themes. It is as if he sat at a drawing colour up to its highest intensity, setting it off only they spent considerable energy outwitting the
board, twirling his compass with a kind of auto- occasionally with blacks or nondescript neutrals. patron, or causing him so much irritation that he
matistic persistence, until the interpenetrating It is fluorescent colour, which to my eye, is eventually gave way.
circles appear strange enough to be cloaked in strangely inert. It seems opaque and light-refusing, Times have changed. It is not the patron who
colour. and therefore, works only minimally when used in assigns, but the art gallery. Not directly, of course,
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