Tuesday 21 June 2011

Frank Stella... and the Simulacrum

This is a text, that I keep coming back to, by the 'neo-geo' artist Peter Halley "Frank Stella... and the Simulacrum" Published in Flash Art, No. 126, January 1986. (Click on the post title) Halley argues that although Stella is seen as part of the modernist tradition his work "conforms closely to a model of post-modernism that is dominated by ideas of hyper-realization, simulation, closure, and fascination."

The video is an interview with Stella recorded 14 years earlier (simultaneously funny and obnoxious!)

2 comments:

Dougal McKenzie said...

Hi Emma- good to have you posting to NOCM! Great link and video of the Stella interview. Co-incidently I've been reading Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation, which dates from around the mid-to-late 60s I think. It fits perfectly with Stella's attempts to shut the critics out, he must have been aware of the essay I'm sure.

Emma Roche said...

Hi Dougal, thanks, Sontag's essay is a great read! Her ideas of 'Flight from' and 'rules of' interpretation and the purpose of criticism are close to lots of Stella's. I'd like to read this: Art in America October 1990 Frank Stella (Single Issue Magazine)
by Susan Sontag Elizabeth C. Baker