Frank Stella: "New Work"

The New York Times
by Roberta Smith

July 5, 2012

It takes awhile to appreciate the sheer formal intelligence of Frank Stella’s hyperactive polychrome wall pieces. Their spiraling forms, shot through with hairpin and curving rods of thin painted tubing, are inspired by the pell-mell music of Scarlatti and the crisp complexities of late Kandinsky. If you look closely, many of them feature ribbons of color that twist and ripple outward from one or two central points: configurations that might almost have been lifted from earlier Stella stripe paintings, unleashed into three dimensions.