| Artist: | Frank Stella |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title: | Brazilian Merganser [Exotic Bird series] | |
| Date: | 1980 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Minimalist Painting | |
| Movement: | ||
| Materials: | ||
| Subject: part of the "Exotic Birds" series in which all the paintings were titled after extinct and vanishing species of birds. While he had earlier tried to negate illusionism by insisting on the inherent flatness of the picture surface, he now violates the surface with metal relief segments that project forward; constant play between 2 and 3 dimensions. Style: does not go back into space (perspectival illusion) but he does come forward through painted metal relief projections; his way of moving beyond Minimalism's insistent flatness without going backwards into traditional perspective; the result is a complex tug of war between 2 and 3 dimensions. He coats the painted surface with ground glass that results in a sparkling, metallic finish; uses the French-curve form to mimic the exotic bird's plumage; French curves are engineering tools or templates for drawing flat designs, but here they form the metal reliefs that project outward. The works seem almost gestural and quite playful compared to the strict rigor and geometry that had shaped his earlier work. The "Exotic Birds" actually sparkle like graffiti, which probably inspired them. Context: Stella's Minimalism evolving in new directions so as not to get trapped within its own illusions or repetitive dead ends; opens up his "working space" to include the painterly and the gestural; moves forward rather than backward, like Caravaggio who moved on past Renaissance perspective by projecting forward into a Baroque stagelike space. Good example of how Stella approaches painting as a problem solver, looking for ways to expand boundaries and the possibilites of pictorial space. While geometry controlled the earlier work, here he becomes more improvisational and freewheeling in his irregular curves, like engineering run amuck. Creating and articulating a viable new space following what he calls the crisis of modernism and abstraction's "entrappment in flatness." The "Exotic Birds" series introduces a new expansiveness through a projective relief space Stella always on the lookout for a way out of the dead end through a re-structuring of pictorial space. | ||
