In his monumental relief Corpo-senza-l’anima, Frank Stella collages sprawling cylindrical and round forms made of aluminum, canvas, and fibreglass, thus breaking up the classical pictorial framework of painting. He named the series after a cycle of Italian folk tales published in a new version by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The poet simplified the tales to make them more accessible to a wider readership. Stella saw this simplicity and directness as analogous to his rectilinear, geometric abstract forms from the series of works of the same name.
Frank Stella (1936–2024)
Corpo-senza-l’anima (Cones and Pillars Series), 1985
Currently exhibited: Yes (1st floor)
Material: mixed media on metal and plastic
Size: 398.8 x 322.6 x 33 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_534
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Previous owner: M. Knoedler & Co., New York; private collection
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Phillips, New York, 2021
Solo exhibitions:
1991
‘Frank Stella 1958–1990’, Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan; Kitakyūshū Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyūshū, Japan
‘Frank Stella: Painting and Relief’, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
1988
‘Frank Stella’, Akira Ikeda Gallery, Taura
Frank Stella drew on a variety of sources for the Cones and Pillars series, ranging from architectural theory to folklore. The title of the series is probably a reference to Paul Cézanne’s advice to render the natural world in cylinders, spheres, and cones. He was also inspired by the geometric representation of columns and cones in French architect Louis Monduit’s treatise on designing stone bodies for architecture (Traité théorique et pratique de stéréotomie of 1889).
Stella’s interest in architecture is also evident in his concern with the relationship between the pictorial space of the artwork and the literal space of the wall on which it is installed. ‘What painting wants more than anything else is working space. Space to grow with and expand into, pictorial space that encourages unlimited orientation and extension. Painting does not want to be confined by boundaries of edge and surface’ [1] he explained in one of the lectures he gave at Harvard University in 1983 and 1984.
In his monumental relief Corpo-senza-l’anima, Frank Stella collages sprawling cylindrical and round forms made of aluminum, canvas, and fibreglass, thus breaking up the classical pictorial framework of painting. The free painting of the individual forms reveals the artist’s new focus, which shifted from geometry to painterly gesture in the 1980s. He named the series after a cycle of Italian folk tales published in a new version by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The poet simplified the tales to make them more accessible to a wider readership. Stella saw this simplicity and directness as analogous to his rectilinear, geometric abstract forms from the series of works of the same name.
[1] Frank Stella, Working Space, Cambridge 1986, p. 19.
