Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture
May 1 - July 29, 2007
Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery
Frank Stella on the Roof May 1 - October 28, 2007 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
Press preview for both exhibitions: Monday, April 30, 10 a.m. - noon
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present two concurrent exhibitions featuring recent work by the renowned American artist Frank Stella (born 1936) in spring 2007.
The first exhibition, Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture (May 1 – July 29, 2007), will explore Stella's interest in architecture over the last decade. Showing works ranging from small models to an enormous quarter-scale mock-up, the exhibition will demonstrate how Stella's formal concerns literally moved from painting, to wall-reliefs, to free-standing sculpture that became architecture.
This will be the Museum's second exhibition in a series investigating the works of artists and architects; the first was Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture (October 18, 2005 – March 5, 2006).
The second exhibition, Frank Stella on the Roof (May 1 – October 28, 2007), will consist of recent sculptures in stainless steel and etched aluminum by the artist. They will be displayed on the Iris and B. Gerald Canter Roof Garden, an open-air space atop the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing that offers spectacular views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. It will mark the tenth annual single-artist installation on the Roof Garden.
The installation is made possible by a grant from Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.
Since his first showings in New York in the 1950s, Stella has occupied an important place among New York artists and has continued to expand the boundaries of what abstract painting and sculpture can be. His fame was cemented by early retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art; Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture and Frank Stella on the Roof will mark his first exhibitions at the Metropolitan.
Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture and Frank Stella on the Roof will be organized by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge, and Anne L. Strauss, Associate Curator, both in the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Both exhibitions will be featured on the Museum's Web site at www.metmuseum.org.
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The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden opened to the public in 1987. Annual installations have featured selections of modern sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum's collection and, most recently, presentations of works by the artists Ellsworth Kelly (1998), Magdalena Abakanowicz (1999), David Smith (2000), Joel Shapiro (2001), Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (2002), Roy Lichtenstein (2003), Andy Goldsworthy (2004), Sol LeWitt (2005), and Cai Guo-Qiang (2006).
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Sandwiches and beverage service – including espresso, cappuccino, iced tea, soft drinks, wine, and beer – are available at the Cantor Roof Garden daily from 10:00 a.m. until closing, May 1 through October 28, as weather permits.
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November 13, 2006
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