Frank Stella at the de Young

"The important thing was the space the marks suggested. It was the space within a space. The painting was physical, but it also had a pictorial dimension.

Materiality and gesture make space." –Frank Stella, from the catalog

Went to see the current retrospective at the de Young Museum for Frank Stella. The first few galleries provided excellent examples of the kind of geometric, colored canvases you might expect from Stella: striped patterns of energy presented with experimental and industrial paints (with copper, aluminum, and florescent alkyds). But the last few rooms were really unexpected, at least to me: sculptures that represented Stella's idea of dimensional drawings executed with some amazing engineering (including 3D printing and other rapid prototyping tools).

I recall seeing earlier forms of these works at a show at the Addison Gallery in Andover, MA in the late 1990's, showing his work with Tyler Graphics. He was also working on some kind of art car with the students there at Phillips Academy - imagine being a high school art student, and your teacher is Frank Stella. Clearly things had moved from flat shapes, to swoopy collages of low-relief "objects-drawings". Then like his use of copper and aluminum paints, the shapes began to take on a materiality of their own; not just parts pulled or pushed from a surface, but collected in space.

But there was a point in the show where he answered whether his pieces were paintings or sculptures, and he famously, and for a long time, resisted calling his art sculpture. He responded that he thought of his process as drawing – drawing in space. While the nature and quality of the objects was, clearly, of great importance to him, the act of making was primary.

It struck me that this transition was so much like the transition from something like analytical cubism to synthetic: a profound qualitative and dimensional shift that allowed the object making to include new technologies and processes, like printmaking or 3D printing. I thought about how I had framed Stella’s work from the things I learned in art history class (the Black Paintings, the shaped canvases) and what I had seen at the Addison show (large flowing, brightly-colored, printed shapes). So the surprise for me was the continuing evolution of the work into new spatial and perceptual realms, and the on-going experimentation with new digital tools at the forward edge of making. 

When I read wall labels at an art show, I am primarily looking for dates, which give me some idea of the direction and the progression of the works. But in the case of this retrospective, the things that caught my attention were the materials. The copper and industrial paints gave way to aluminum and fiber-glass, and then to TUSK Solid Grey 3000 and Protogen RPT (both liquid photopolymer resins used in stereolithographic printing). In many art shows, the type of paint or materials hardly changes at all – obviously not the case here.

Finally, in the lobby as a tremendously fun and engaging activity put on by the Museum staff; they replaced the mono-chrome gridded image that usually hangs on this extra-large wall with an enormous Stella piece from 1999 (which would have been right after the Addison show I mentioned earlier) called Das Erdbeben in Chili. In front of this was a set of tables laid out with scissors, colored pencils, glue sticks, and a large supply of brightly colored papers. Young children and their families were seated there, cutting shapes and collaging the parts. It was gratifying to see the energy and the imagination of Stella's work transfer directly to those young artists.

SFMOMA Members Preview Day

Another weekend museum opening: SF MOMA's new addition - a new building really - opened for a Member's Preview Day this weekend. This was special - it's a true gem.

Designed by Snohetta, the new building creates both a back-drop for the older Mario Botta building from 3rd Street and the Moscone Center, and a new "face" and entrance on Howard Street, a wavy, rhythmic sheet of stone (fiberglass reinforced polymer). Climbing the angled, wide stairway, one enters a broad and open lobby. 

Off to the left, back down toward the street, there is a special gallery for a Richard Serra installation and a seating area for talks and events - a series of curled steel panels that creates both courtyards and alleys. The piece is called "Sequence, and acts as a very tempting appetizer.

From the new lobby, one can see the "Living Wall" in the courtyard just above, and the grand stair draws you upward. However, we took the elevator to the top floor (the 7th) and stepped out onto a sunlit balcony - views over the roofs toward the Bay, and then back to the top edge of the "wavy" wall. From here, one can see and feel the mezmerizing layers and ripples of that surface.

Stepping back into the galleries, and there is a series of flowing areas - a bit less than discrete rooms, but a lot more than a continuous hall. The galleries have an unfinished feel; I wonder if the ceiling are showing their final finish.

Downstairs, the galleries maintain a similar flow, with views between and around the artwork; each gallery space gives peeks ahead and back. Here, the ceilings are finished, and there is more of a "white room" kind of gallery space working. The space just behind the wavy wall acts ad a stairway and vertical connector, though the stairs don't connect one right into the other, inviting visitors to stop at each level and explore.

On the 5th floor, is one of the main galleries for the Fisher Collection. Here the galleries feel truly polished and special, with a coved ceiling detail providing indirect and diffuse light. Again, the wall panels, never surround you; the corners spill into two or three adjoining spaces, and one wanders from moment to moment, artist to artist, and art piece to art pice. Several artists are features at the opening, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Agnes Martin are all given special spaces. There is a bit of magic in the scale: big enough to allow the over-scaled pieces to breathe, but small enough to give the spaces a room-like feel. That is, a room of Ellsworth Kelly "shapes" allows the viewer to enjoy each piece as well as the gathered pieces.

A crossing hallway on the 5th level re-connects the Botta building and the older Sculpture Garden, with a view down through a lighting grid to a special event space. On the 4th level, the same crossing hallway ends at the "Living Wall" courtyard - which is accessible from the 3rd level. On this Sculpture Terrace, one can truly enjoy the architecture and see how several of the larger building parts come together. Looking up, you can see the "bridge" connecting to the older Sculpture Garden on the 5th level, as well as the towers of the adjacent buildings. Looking back through the glass to the galleries, you can see past to the older Botta building. Peers around the corner and you can see the "cut" edge of the "wavy" wall, the joins between the old and new, and the street beyond. Walk to the other end, and you can see the Howard Street entrance and the other publics spaces below. Just inside the Sculpture Terrace. there is a special gallery showing Calder mobiles.

Just around the corner from the Calder gallery is a showcase of models and sketches from Snohetta showing the design process for the new building.

From there we descend the main stair in the new Howard Street Lobby, and through to the Botta building. We recall that there used to be a dark, square stair cased the previously connected all levels; the staircase has been removed, and the main space opened up to the older 3rd Street Lobby below - with a Calder mobile and a new, zig-zaggy, Snohetta stair back down to the street level.

And that's it, we did not finish our tour - the new building is just huge and it's difficult to imagine covering the whole thing in one morning. SF MOMA now has the scale, stature of collection, and sense of place to compete with any of the big modern museums. Can't wait to return.