Word: stella
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Throughout the '60s, Stella's paintings had been very forthright. Indeed, the clarity of his decisions was the main reason for his reputation as a prodigy. The patterns were absolutely explicit; they straddled the surface like theorems...
...Stella, dissatisfied with the plane surface of canvas-no matter whether its edges were an orthodox rectangle or not-began planning constructions, in homage to Russian constructivism and, in particular, its master Kasimir Malevich. Each painting (named after Polish and Russian village synagogues) was a shallow wall relief, built up of interlocking trapezoids and triangles of composition board that stuck out inches from one another and from the wall. Without one vertical or horizontal line in them, these tilting plaques had a mournful architectonic power. One experiences their juts and slippages as a form of physical stress. They were transitional...
Starting with the Brazilian series, Stella used the most precise-looking of all materials, metal, to carry the paint. Designing with it gave Stella's work a more overtly constructivist look than ever, in line with Malevich's prediction written 60 years before: "We see now technical means penetrating into the purely painterly picture, and these means may already be called 'engineering.' " Of course, a piece like Grajaú I, 1975, is only fictive engineering- it does not have to with stand the stresses of the real world, like a truss or a glider wing...
...from honeycombed aluminum. But they are loaded with color, blaring with the kind of greedy, apoplectic vitality. On first sight, they look as though a squad of glue-snorting graffitists had been let loose with crayons, spray cans and party glitter in a constructivist warehouse. Surfaces that Stella would once have left pure and flat are loaded with rich, scribbled color. The shapes slice and crash, in and out, mocking the conventions of flatness and integrity of the picture plane...
...Stella's control over his means is such that never once does one doubt the emphatic seriousness behind the display. He has at last discovered his own sensuality as a painter, and set it forth in what is, quite simply, the bravest performance abstract art has offered in years: manic energy channeled by an infrangible toughness of mind. Almost a decade ago, Leider's essay notes, Stella described his ambition- "to combine the abandon and indulgence of Matisse's Dance with the overall strength and sheer formal inspiration of . . . his Moroccans. " Perhaps that goal, like the target...