Fig. 16 Wassily Kandinsky, Farbige Linien, 1924. Watercolor and Indian ink on paper on cardboard, 11 7/8 × 18 in. (30.2 × 45.7 cm). Private collection, Courtesy Galerie Thomas, Munich, 2014 Fig. 17 Frank Stella, K.17 (lattice variation) protogen RPT (full-size), 2008. Protogen RPT with stainless steel tubing, 12 ft. × 14 ft. 7 1/2 in. × 7 ft. (3.7 × 4.5 × 2.1 m). Private collection
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long smoke tail leading back to his mouth—a Jackson Pollock made of smoke, as one might imagine paint flying through the air from Pollock’s turkey baster (one of the tools he used to propel his medium) and landing on his floor-bound canvases (fig. 14). For decades, Stella casually analyzed how smoke rings operate in space, admiring their gestural elegance. He explains: “A smoke ring is a gesture that is intrinsically a part of space, integrated into it. It doesn’t sit in front of space and it isn’t in the background. It’s like a molecular part of it. I’ve always wished I could do that with a painted gesture.” In the late 1980s, the artist began studying smoke rings more rigorously—how they form, move, and bifurcate, splitting and producing new rings in space. In 1990, his assistants set up an eight-foot-square box enclosed on all sides, lit with four lightbulbs and outfitted with cameras on the sides, top, and bottom. As Stella blew smoke rings through a small hole in the box, the six synchronized cameras captured them from every angle. The photographs were then fed into 3-D computer imaging programs like Illustrator and Photoshop, which created outlines of the smoke rings and diagram-
matic renderings that mapped the forms in a simulation of three-dimensional space. These CAD simulations, which have been utilized for all the major series from the early 1990s to the present, allowed the artist to more fully see how the forms were integrated into space. As Stella puts it, “Virtual space has no ground. That’s the beauty of it. It’s about destroying the ground so you can explore all the dimensions and viewpoints.” By creating 3-D computer maps, often deconstructing and recombining them into new compositions—Matisse’s concept of the cut-out has now been computerized and objectified—Stella has been able to build sleek constructions that can truly be read both two- and three- dimensionally. A 3-D printer builds an image in thin layers, not unlike how a painting is produced, but literally in space. Combining lightweight aluminum “lines” and curved plastic planes made from this process, Stella can create orbital compositions that “float” in space while anchored to both the wall and the floor, the prescribed surfaces of both painting and sculpture. CAD programs are now a requisite tool of architects, and, given the spatial trajectory of Stella’s paintings into
Michael Auping
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