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Lot Essay
‘[Stella] considers the modern city to be determined by a dualism of statics and dynamics… the materials are synonyms for density and transparency whose effect is not appropriately accentuated in hard constructions.’ FRANZ-JOACHIM VERSPOHL
Frank Stella’s explosive Ebuda is a dynamic, pulverised mass of metal. Executed in 1994, at the height of the artist’s international fame, the bricolage demonstrates his fascinations methods of assembling found objects. Intended to be hung on a wall like a painting, Ebuda incorporates printed aluminium, metal mesh and steel, fusing them together in a tirade of industrial materials that evokes the scrap sprawled across a wrecking yard. Stella’s work validates this unconventional media, repurposing and revitalising it as a paean to vivacious urbanisation; as Franz-Joachim Verspohl has noted, ‘[Stella] considers the modern city to be determined by a dualism of statics and dynamics… the materials are synonyms for density and transparency whose effect is not appropriately accentuated in hard constructions’ (F. Verspohl, ‘Frank Stella in Jena – Survey and Prospect’, in Heinrich von Kleist by Frank Stella, exh. cat., Galerie der Jenoptik AG, Jena, 2001, p. 263). In his assembling of this mixed industrial media, Stella allows us to see the physical process of its construction, in turn emphasising the essence of its character.
Stella rose to prominence during the 1960s, examining the performance of the painting as an object. In the following decades, Stella moved from flat two-dimensional supports towards an exploration of literal space, propelled by the spatial illusionism of Renaissance and Baroque painters (Caravaggio’s use of foreshortening was particularly influential). Coming to a head in the 1990s, his series of bricolages broke free from the wall space entirely, creating phenomenological microcosms that cofound perceptual expectations of desired viewpoint and positioning. This ambiguity leads back to Stella’s intentions to make the viewer aware and analytical of the construction of his found media. Executed at the same time as his iconic Moby Dick series, Ebuda similarly acquires its unique character through the nature of its assemblage, forming a captivatingly chaotic unit enveloped by a container of space.
Frank Stella’s explosive Ebuda is a dynamic, pulverised mass of metal. Executed in 1994, at the height of the artist’s international fame, the bricolage demonstrates his fascinations methods of assembling found objects. Intended to be hung on a wall like a painting, Ebuda incorporates printed aluminium, metal mesh and steel, fusing them together in a tirade of industrial materials that evokes the scrap sprawled across a wrecking yard. Stella’s work validates this unconventional media, repurposing and revitalising it as a paean to vivacious urbanisation; as Franz-Joachim Verspohl has noted, ‘[Stella] considers the modern city to be determined by a dualism of statics and dynamics… the materials are synonyms for density and transparency whose effect is not appropriately accentuated in hard constructions’ (F. Verspohl, ‘Frank Stella in Jena – Survey and Prospect’, in Heinrich von Kleist by Frank Stella, exh. cat., Galerie der Jenoptik AG, Jena, 2001, p. 263). In his assembling of this mixed industrial media, Stella allows us to see the physical process of its construction, in turn emphasising the essence of its character.
Stella rose to prominence during the 1960s, examining the performance of the painting as an object. In the following decades, Stella moved from flat two-dimensional supports towards an exploration of literal space, propelled by the spatial illusionism of Renaissance and Baroque painters (Caravaggio’s use of foreshortening was particularly influential). Coming to a head in the 1990s, his series of bricolages broke free from the wall space entirely, creating phenomenological microcosms that cofound perceptual expectations of desired viewpoint and positioning. This ambiguity leads back to Stella’s intentions to make the viewer aware and analytical of the construction of his found media. Executed at the same time as his iconic Moby Dick series, Ebuda similarly acquires its unique character through the nature of its assemblage, forming a captivatingly chaotic unit enveloped by a container of space.