In the chapter The Chase – Second Day, Melville describes the second day of the chase for Moby Dick. Starbuck takes command of the Pequod while Ahab, Stubb, and Flask take to their three smaller boats. Each of them manages to harpoon the whale, but Moby Dick starts to spin in circles, whereupon the boats become entangled in their own harpoon lines. Ahab cuts his boat free, but the other two are smashed against the whale’s flank. The men swim to safety, clinging to wreckage. Meanwhile, Moby Dick emerges from below and presses his forehead against the bottom of Ahab’s boat. He manages to hang on, but loses his harpoon. The crew makes it safely back on board the Pequod as Moby Dick swims away.
In the reliefs, Frank Stella succeeded in transforming the drama of the narrative into a total experience. The interweaving of forms – such as the air spouting from the whale’s blowhole, the sharp point of the harpoon or the twisted wreckage of the boats and the ship – allow viewers to perceive all the events which develop throughout the chapter simultaneously.
Frank Stella (1936–2024)
The Chase – Second Day (Moby Dick Series), 1989
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: In Search of the White Whale)
Material: Mixed media on metal
Size: 290 x 555 x 135 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_263
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, VAN HAM Kunstauktionen, Cologne, 2012
Frank Stella (b. 1936) worked from 1986 to 1997 on a series on Moby-Dick that included a total of 266 large-scale metal reliefs, a mural, collages, and prints. He named one piece of work after each of the 135 chapters of the book. He got the idea for the series when he was watching beluga whales in a large aquarium with his sons and became interested in their organic, curved shapes. His observations prompted him to read the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. [1] Stella became fascinated with the story of Captain Ahab’s vengeful pursuit of the white sperm whale Moby-Dick, which propels him through the world’s oceans.
In the reliefs from this series, in which individual elements project out into the room, the artist succeeded in intertwining form and environment: the curved whale skull (The Sperm Whale’s Head, 1989), the emergence of the spindly whale body (Stubb Kills a Whale, 1988), the whale ejecting air from its blowhole, wreckage of boats and the ship Pequod, the pointed harpoon, torn nets, and graphically represented maelstroms and whirlpools (The Chase – Second Day, 1989) repeatedly lead to a transition between inside/outside, surface/space, and figuration/abstraction. The ocean as something continually changing opens up an infinite number of possible forms. By combining and superimposing them, Stella invites us to perceive more than one element of the narrative at a time. Captain Ahab’s search for the unknown white whale is a metaphor for the attempt to uncover the secrets of the world while Frank Stella is pursuing the essence of abstraction and its future. The novel prompted him to ask the question ‘whether abstraction [was] more suitable to provide the novel with a pictorial expression than any illustration, however skillful’ [2].
In this way, Frank Stella formulates the leitmotif question of the Reinhard Ernst Collection, which is answered anew in each exhibition room. A tour of the collection explores the potential of abstraction.
[1] Frank Stella: ‘The idea of the whale reminded me of Moby Dick, so I decided to go back and read the novel and the more I got into it, the more I thought it would be great to use the chapter headings of the novel for the titles of the pieces.’ Quoted in: Frank Stella unbound: literature and printmaking, ed. by Mitra Abbaspour, exhib. cat. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton (NJ) 2018, p. 74.
[2] Quoted in Heinz-Norbert Jocks, ‘Frank Stella: “I use the style that suits me at the moment.” A Conversation by Heinz-Nobert Jocks,’ in: Kunstforum international, H. 127, July – September 1994, pp. 272–289, here p. 283.
