What you see is what you see

Somehow I published this post earlier before it was finished – the challenges of blogging from a phone… apologies for being bad at technology.

This weekend I found out about Frank Stella’s passing while I was down at Artfields showing and talking about a work titled Life’s Meaning is Enhanced by Its Fleeting and Transient Nature. Thanks, universe…

Frank had some training as an artist but it was not his major at Princeton, and he freely admitted to having no mimetic facility or interest. My point is that his practice was all about materiality- 100% abstractionist from the jump. I hadn’t realized that until I started reading up on him a bit for this blog. As someone who didn’t consider myself an artist until I discovered abstraction I certainly relate.

Like many art majors I met the “protractors” first. I didn’t make hard edge paintings early in my journey although I did end up there at one point. I didn’t realize until writing this blog that my reason for embracing a direct approach to opticality was also a reaction, in my case to the seriousness of an academic environment, in Frank’s to what turned out to be the broad strokes of Art history. And while those explorations were separated by half a century of time and a cultural gulf (I was reacting to the reaction to his reaction) our shared intent was to center the viewer on their perceptions- “what you see is what you see.” To put Frank’s famous quote in full context, “all I want anyone to get out of my paintings is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any conclusion”- with immediacy.

Blah blah blah- Jerry Saltz has much wiser things to say about him of course (had- article is from 2015). And I don’t just say that ’cause JS also thinks the Polish Village series is fire*. I also really liked this Megan O’Grady article from the NYT in 2020– link should get the first ten of you that use it past the pay wall.

*Here’s my Pinterest gallery of his work from the early ’70s which is some of my favorite.

#frankstella