Conceptual Art
This has been sitting in my drafts folder since late December. Time to do something with it!
Again I've been re-reading the Irving Sandler memoirs, 'A Sweeper-Up After Artists,' and I was quite surprised to read how important he felt Frank Stella's art to be. He credited Stella with dealing 'the death blow to academic gesture painting...' when Stella was 23 years old. Stella was a participant in the 16 Americans show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959.
I've seen some of Frank Stella's paintings and didn't pay much attention to them at the time. Lots of symmetrical black stripes on an otherwise monochrome canvas. What Sandler points out is that Stella considered the idea more important than the execution of a work. Sol Lewitt is well known as a conceptual artist and wrote extensively about it. Lewitt often had assistants execute a work from his sketches or designs. Apparently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired Lewitt's Blue Ceiling and what Lewitt delivered to the museum was a set of drawings for others to use a guides in painting the ceiling.
It's got me thinking again about a piece I've wanted to make for a while, but I can't tell you just yet...
P.S. It's sometimes funny what the spell-checker suggests for words not in its dictionary. For 'Lewitt' it suggested 'lewd.' Humh, perhaps the spell-checker believes in aesthetic beauty?
Again I've been re-reading the Irving Sandler memoirs, 'A Sweeper-Up After Artists,' and I was quite surprised to read how important he felt Frank Stella's art to be. He credited Stella with dealing 'the death blow to academic gesture painting...' when Stella was 23 years old. Stella was a participant in the 16 Americans show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959.
I've seen some of Frank Stella's paintings and didn't pay much attention to them at the time. Lots of symmetrical black stripes on an otherwise monochrome canvas. What Sandler points out is that Stella considered the idea more important than the execution of a work. Sol Lewitt is well known as a conceptual artist and wrote extensively about it. Lewitt often had assistants execute a work from his sketches or designs. Apparently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired Lewitt's Blue Ceiling and what Lewitt delivered to the museum was a set of drawings for others to use a guides in painting the ceiling.
It's got me thinking again about a piece I've wanted to make for a while, but I can't tell you just yet...
P.S. It's sometimes funny what the spell-checker suggests for words not in its dictionary. For 'Lewitt' it suggested 'lewd.' Humh, perhaps the spell-checker believes in aesthetic beauty?
posted by Rick's Rambles at 9:06 am
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