| Perhaps more than any other American artist, Frank Stella has tirelessly posed
the question “What can painting be?” with no intention of coming
up with a singular answer. Part of Stella’s Brazilian series, the painted
relief Botafogo II takes its name from a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. The
varied array of painterly and technical approaches in this relief signaled a
significant change of direction in Stella’s work. His earlier assembled
paintings—typically made of felt, canvas, or wood—evidence a controlled
execution that here gives way to an intense involvement with drawing and surface.
Painterly marks abound on each and every plane in the form of scribbles, scrapes,
and gestures that range from thick, loose swirls to agitated scratches. Even
the seemingly solid surfaces reveal rich textures that materialize through
transparent, lacquer-based washes of color. The spontaneous appearance of these
marks belies,
however, the meticulous process of acid etching used to create them. . . .
:: Stacey Schmidt, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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:: The Curator's Journals Project
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