ExhibitionOctober 14, 2020
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is presenting Frank Stella’s Stars, a Survey
Under the spotlight for the first time, this exhibition surveys Stella’s use of the star, ranging from two-dimensional works of the 1960s to its most recent incarnation in sculptures, wall reliefs, and painted objects from the 2010s. Frank Stella’s Stars, A Survey, the artist’s first solo exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, will be on view in the Museum’s galleries and Sculpture Garden until May 9, 2021.
Stella’s use of the star began during his first decade in New York as he was exhibiting his groundbreaking striped and shaped paintings. It then vanished and resurfaced many decades later at a moment when he committed himself to three-dimensional abstraction. Today, the star is the lead in scores of works from small objects to towering sculptures. Scaled to the table or the open air, Stella’s star works transport us—we imagine how disparate elements shift, how parts are assembled, how paint is applied. The works parade an outsized material resourcefulness that collapses analogue and twenty-first century fabrication techniques: RPT (rapid prototype technology) plastics, teak, aluminum, stainless steel, birch plywood, fiberglass, carbon fiber, and more. With their automotive neon hues, shimmering and natural finishes, the stars, big and small, flex and project a spatial dynamism that intimates a potential maneuverability—as if they were built to perform.
At The Aldrich, Stella’s star works will be on view outdoors throughout the Museum’s grounds and inside the galleries. Outside, large-scale sculptures will be sited from Ridgefield’s historic Main Street, the Museum’s semi-enclosed interior courtyard, and two-acre Sculpture Garden. Inside, the exhibition will occupy the entire ground floor including the Museum’s Project Space where the largest sculpture in the exhibition, Fat 12 Point Carbon Fiber Star (2016), challenges the room’s perimeter with its twelve puffed up rays stretching twenty-one feet in all directions. Since the Museum’s founding in 1964, Stella’s work has been included in fifteen group exhibitions.
The exhibition, curated by Richard Klein and Amy Smith-Stewart, will be accompanied by a full-color 150-page hardbound catalogue, featuring essays by the exhibition’s curators.
For more information visit: https://aldrichart.org/exhibitions/frank-stellas-stars-a-survey
Stella’s use of the star began during his first decade in New York as he was exhibiting his groundbreaking striped and shaped paintings. It then vanished and resurfaced many decades later at a moment when he committed himself to three-dimensional abstraction. Today, the star is the lead in scores of works from small objects to towering sculptures. Scaled to the table or the open air, Stella’s star works transport us—we imagine how disparate elements shift, how parts are assembled, how paint is applied. The works parade an outsized material resourcefulness that collapses analogue and twenty-first century fabrication techniques: RPT (rapid prototype technology) plastics, teak, aluminum, stainless steel, birch plywood, fiberglass, carbon fiber, and more. With their automotive neon hues, shimmering and natural finishes, the stars, big and small, flex and project a spatial dynamism that intimates a potential maneuverability—as if they were built to perform.
At The Aldrich, Stella’s star works will be on view outdoors throughout the Museum’s grounds and inside the galleries. Outside, large-scale sculptures will be sited from Ridgefield’s historic Main Street, the Museum’s semi-enclosed interior courtyard, and two-acre Sculpture Garden. Inside, the exhibition will occupy the entire ground floor including the Museum’s Project Space where the largest sculpture in the exhibition, Fat 12 Point Carbon Fiber Star (2016), challenges the room’s perimeter with its twelve puffed up rays stretching twenty-one feet in all directions. Since the Museum’s founding in 1964, Stella’s work has been included in fifteen group exhibitions.
The exhibition, curated by Richard Klein and Amy Smith-Stewart, will be accompanied by a full-color 150-page hardbound catalogue, featuring essays by the exhibition’s curators.
For more information visit: https://aldrichart.org/exhibitions/frank-stellas-stars-a-survey
