Frank Stella

John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco
Collection of Richard A. Cramer

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Frank Stella's artist statement from 1959, penned by Carl Andre at the request of Stella, reads: "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella is not interested in expression or sensitivity [...]. [His] painting is not symbolic. His stripes are the paths of brush on canvas. These paths lead only into painting." (Carl Andre, Frank Stella, in Dorothy C. Miller, Sixteen Americans, exhibition catalog (New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1963, p. 76). What at the time was written in reference to Stella's renowned Black Paintings is evinced almost a decade later when Stella started creating his shaped canvases remaining at an expressive remove.

 

Khurasan Gate III, 1968, is an example of the Protractor series that combines a single motif and its eponymous shape. The titles of this series are taken from ancient cities in Asia Minor and are followed by a roman numeral indicating to which of the groups – "interlaces", "rainbows", or "fans" – the work belongs. Khurasan Gate III, is an example from the group of fans, evoking a beautiful decorative pattern with a cacophony of yellows, oranges, blues and greens which create a structured pictorial kaleidoscope. 

 

The work's striking presence does not leave the viewer with much opportunity for doubt or hesitation. A result the artist aims at when he states: " [...] only what can be seen there is there." (Frank Stella as quoted from an interview with Bruce Glaser in 1966, Artnews, "Questions to Stella and Judd") This neutrality of expression in Stella's works was originally influenced by his contemporary Jasper Johns who saw the object itself (such as his renowned work Flag (1954-55) as being the image. Frank Stella takes Johns' idea to a further extent and eliminates not only the subject matter but also the painterly touch, leaving no trace of individual style whatsoever. Stella's presentation, with the shape and pattern adapting to one another, has eliminated foreground and background, refusing any spatial recession, the combination of which emphasizes this works' presence as an object.