De la nada vida a la nada muerte

Frank StellaWW-1965-133661

1965·Metallic powder in polymer emulsion on canvas·205.7 × 744.2 cm (81 × 293 in.)

Known for his early stripe paintings and elaborately shaped canvases, the prodigiously inventive Frank Stella always works in series. De la nada vida a la nada muerte is the largest of his Running V paintings—a set of large, monochromatic striped pictures whose titles derive from colloquial Spanish expressions. The length and mellifluous sound of this work’s title, which literally means “From life nothing to death nothing,” coincides with the rising and falling visual cadences of the painting. The two-dimensional surface, which appears as if it might continue into infinity, consists of 20 parallel lines and seems to alternately project from and recede into the wall. Although Stella’s rigorously calibrated surface, immaculate execution, and use of monochromatic gold pigment temper this painting, they barely constrain its kinetic exuberance.

Catalogue

Year: 1965
Medium: Metallic powder in polymer emulsion on canvas
Dimensions: 205.7 × 744.2 cm (81 × 293 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Frank Stella

Artist

Frank Stella

Painting

One of the most well-regarded postwar American artists still working today, Frank Stella (b. 1936) moved to New York in 1958 after graduating from Princeton, where he majored in history and studied painting. With his first series, “Black Paintings” (1958–60) – in which parallel patterns in black house paint were separated by pinstripes of unpainted canvas – the artist radically departed from his Abstract Expressionist forebears, declared himself a practitioner of nonrepresentational painting (work that is detached from any emotional, intellectual or physical reality) and helped launch Minimalism.

Malden, MA, USA

Full artist profile →