Frank Stella

As part of the celebration of the art collection at the U.S. ambassador's residence, Ambassador Foley invited celebrated artist Frank Stella to take part in the reception and media tour. The day after the media tour, The Japan Times interviewed Stella at the residence. Following are excerpts from the interview.

Your work "Violet to Red Violet" is currently on display in the ambassador's residence. It was created in 1967. Do you view this work any differently now that over three decades have passed?

"I guess it's a little different. I guess I'm surprised that I still like it.

"It wears well. Also, technically, it was painted with a fluorescent alkaline paint, which was just a commercial paint that they used for whatever purpose, in the '60s. Everyone predicted that it wouldn't last, that it would fade, but actually it has held up quite well. I wouldn't recommend direct sunlight, but other than that it does well."

I read in "Twentieth Century American Painting" that you were "the first to understand the implications of Jasper Johns' attitudes toward space and shape." What role does space and shape play in your work?

"I don't know. Actually I don't think about it that much. Pictorial space is what you make of it. Maybe what they were talking about in this book is where the shape or the form sort of become one thing. Mainly, I guess in Jasper's painting, you could say that the target was the whole painting."

Who was the most influential person in your development as an artist?

"I knew Hans Hofmann from when I was a student. He was one of the heroes of the school I went to. I studied in the Hans Hofmann teaching method, so you could say I was a student of Hofmann. Actually, I think Hofmann really is, in the end, the one that I started out with. He was certainly the biggest influence when I started, and he's sort of the biggest influence now when, in moments of need or panic, whatever it is, he seems like a touchstone. I mean that's the kind of art that I really love, and that's the kind of art that I want to make. So I use that, sort of, as a standard, and a kind of home, a place to go back to."

Frank Stella with his famed work "Violet to Red Violet" (1967), now on loan to the U.S. ambassador's residence, Tokyo. At right, an African mask from the ambassador's private collection.

When you are creating art, does its placement in a specific physical setting affect your concept?

"No. I guess you can ruin anything by putting it in a terrible place, but by and large I make the paintings in the studio, and the studio is just a place where you make them, so they usually, if they don't look good in the studio I don't let them out; I work on something else. But the relationship between the studio and where they're going to end up, there just isn't any. I mean, I don't know where paintings are going to end up, but I don't worry about it too much."

Yesterday the ambassador explained that this residence is in the Moorish, Oriental Hollywood style which was current in the 1930s. What do you think about your painting in the context of the ambassador's residence?

"Well, the collection is so wonderful that it's not a problem. The house is a little grand, but the painting seems to hold up really well here. Actually there's enough room, everything seems to have enough room, it seems to work. And it looks great in the foyer there, so I have no complaints. And it's very nice that across the room is a wonderful painting by Hans Hofmann, so it's as nice a setting as one could hope for.

"This painting by Helen Frankenthaler [pointing to Frankenthaler's 'Hudson Valley' (1958), hung in the library] is tremendously influenced by Hofmann, too. It's the next step from Hofmann. The difference is that Hofmann, you might say, is more traditional, with the heavy paint on a sized canvas. But this is a Hofmannesque attitude toward a more open, freer space. But there is no such space that absorbs the pigment, I mean it's kind of like a watercolor space. This painting, by going into the canvas, created for a while a whole other style and way of painting. And this painting is a kind of interesting painting, because it's the limit. I mean painting actually doesn't get any looser than this painting, and, I don't know what that was, it might be '58 or even earlier, whatever this painting is, but if you find an artist who makes a gesture or, you know, affects the wild-man pose, he won't make anything messier or wilder, actually, than that, or as good. [laughs] So it's a kind of interesting standard."

Frankenthaler is famous for her raw unprimed canvas.

"Yes, yes!"

And she was influenced by Jackson Pollock.

"Yes, but, you know, I mean it's really something in a certain way beyond Pollock. There are other things at stake here. Actually, I think it's one of those things that we all think could have been developed more. It's hard to do. This [painting] sort of has it all, the freshness, a sort of awkwardness, all of the kinds of things that are interesting. It's never set, and it's a kind of special painting. But it's very hard to get beyond that. I mean, in a funny way, we don't get beyond something. You'd think that you could go on getting beyond Pollock, you could be even more gestural, or more open or freer or looser. But there seems to be a kind of limit to it."

Yesterday you gave me your business card, which describes you as a painter, sculptor and architect.

"Yes, painter, sculptor and architect! [laughs] I cover all the fine arts!"

What material do you like best when you create art?

"I don't have any special kind of thing, I mean painting comes first for me. I was able to make sculpture and architecture at whatever level I've made it at, largely because of what I learned from making paintings."

Is one of your goals to extrapolate elements from nature and the world around you? I am thinking in particular of your painting that depicts swirling clouds of smoke.

"The hat motifs and the smoke motifs, I suppose they have given me a lift. Yes, working with those things has given me a sense of a kind of freedom to do lots of things, and they work. I mean, I like them because you can do a lot with them, somehow, and they have a sense of individuality. They don't seem like you've absolutely seen them before all the time. So that when you move them around, you may move them around pretty much the way you've always moved things around when you make art, but they look a little bit different so it's kind of refreshing."

Yes!

"It takes a little of the pressure off you. You don't feel so hemmed in."

You mentioned your fascination with the paintings of Caravaggio. What is it about his work that interests you the most?

"Somehow, what happens in paintings, be they realistic or abstract, happens in large part when they're successful because the artist, one way or the other, worried about making a painting. The worry of making a painting is what creates the painting itself. The worry about actually making the painting focuses the attention in such a way that something special happens. When that something special happens then we all applaud it as great painting. But the notion would be that, you know, everyone talks about information, but the information that you get out of paintings is essentially pictorial information. You could say, well, information exists out there and you could get it somewhere else, but actually what you get is Caravaggio's impression, because his insight and his feeling about what happens, which was filtered through the act of making paintings, tells you something about both painting and subject matter, or his interest in both the models and the ideas that he was interested in. It could only happen in that way."

Can you tell me something about your latest work?

"We just had an exhibition in Miami, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, and part of it afterward, that exhibition went to Chicago and part to the Royal Academy in London, and that has examples of my latest work, which has been some sculpture with stainless steel, and some large mural paintings. And that's about it, because I have to say that my level of activity has slowed down a bit." [laughs]

What goal do you have for your future?

"I don't know. I guess I try to take things as they come, and I like to stay active. And I don't plan much ahead. Most of the things happen when you're working. If you're working a lot then hopefully something will happen that you like."