Black Origins: Frank Stella’s Black Paintings

Join exhibition curator Lee Plested for a presentation on these early, career making works by Frank Stella and their subsequent realization in the Gemini editioned lithographs featured in the current exhibition. Plested will discuss the historical influences on Stella’s mechanical approach to painting, arguing for the social potential of these otherwise formalist works. The Black Paintings, as they are now known, are often cited as the works that signalled the turn away from the romantic individualism of Abstract Expressionism. Plested will explore the possibilities inherent in this new mode of picture making, how the works were described at that time, and their subsequent contribution to a formalist discussion of art’s potential.