60 Years in 9 Artworks
Frank Stella at LACMA
Exhibitions from the permanent collections of museums can often be a tired affair. You might see some secondary works and sketches, and often, that’s about it. However, rarely does a museum put nine artworks together and create a stunning gallery of knockouts. Luckily, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art manages to do just that with their spectacular holdings of works by the celebrated artist Frank Stella. Frank Stella: Selections from the Permanent Collection is a concise and enjoyable tour through the artist’s six decades of work.
Frank Stella has had many phases throughout his career, most all of which are on display here. First, he was a continuation of post-war abstract art with his black and copper paintings done in severe geometric patterns. One such piece in the show is Stella’s 1959’s Getty Tomb. The sixties saw the introduction of color and canvases that no longer adhered to rectangular formats. This is about the time Stella became a headlining figure for the Minimalist movement since his paintings took on machine or object-like qualities. There are a few examples of these works here in the show as well, like 1965’s Bampur.
While Stella may have been peers with Donald Judd and Carl Andre in the sixties, just under a decade later he abandoned his more rigid style altogether for more expressionistic canvases that broke into the third dimension. Great transitional works from this time include 1973’s Rozdol II and Inaccessible Island Rail from 1976. From the 1980s and onward, Stella has moved into even more experimental bodies of work. Mid-career and late-career pieces are grand in scale (i.e.- 1984’s thoroughly postmodern St. Michael’s Counterguard.) While painterly in their color and use of line, recent work is decidedly sculptural: three-dimensional and filled with movement.
No matter how you may feel about Frank Stella’s various styles, he has certainly done more than most anybody to explore and mine the breadth of his talents and ideas. Fortunately, no matter which of his work you may favor, LACMA’s exhibition provides you with stellar examples for any viewer.
