Mosport 4.75X (Second Version), 1982, is a collision-course of vibrant patterns rendered in circuitous turns of metal. The composition bursts forth from the flat planes of the reserved, minimalist paintings that first brought Frank Stella fame in the late 1950s, opting instead for an optical experience that gives a new angle with each blink of the eye. The individual compositional elements coalesce into new shapes, enclosed by spaces of bare wall. The work is inspired by road racing—Mosport is also the name of a racetrack in Ontario, Canada—but the work it not simply about fast cars driving in circles. Rather, it is a daring experiment in template and composition by one of the 20th century’s most formally innovative painters.
The artist in his studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1982. Image: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Kenneth Tyler, 2002 The present work belongs to Stella’s Circuits series, executed between 1980 and 1982. The artist began each work in the series by making a foamcore maquette, which was then sent to a factory to be cast in aluminum or magnesium; the 4.75X of Mosport’s title refers to the level of enlargement from the maquette to the final metal work. Stella then painted over the raw metal in various colors and patterns.
Mosport is a magnesium make, identifiable by the x-shaped grid etched across the surface of the composition.i Leading Stella scholar, William Rubin, wrote that the etched pattern serves to create a unifying, graphic rhythm that grounds the composition, similar to the function of newsprint in Cubist collages, or telephone book pages in the work of Franz Kline.ii Stella himself adds that the grid “established a human, more personal scale for these big pieces.”iii
“The generic title Circuits is meant to refer to road racing. But it’s intended to be a bit ambiguous. In my mind it also refers to the intricate connections within the structural networks of the pictures.”
—Frank Stella In the Circuit series, Stella combines templated forms, such as ship curves, French curves, and the Flexicurve tool, with shapes derived from the process of cutting and building his foamcore maquettes.iv These shapes, often discovered in the process of cutting out the templated forms, are identifiable by their straight edges, such as the yellow and teal rectangle at the lower right in Mosport, with an arabesque cut from its center. However, trying to trace each individual element of Mosport to a particular model is a fool’s errand; as Rubin writes, the work is more about “the fabric of interconnections—which might be called the compositional ‘circuitry’—[which] overwhelms the identities of its individual components.”v
To look at Mosport is an immersive experience. The contrasting, even clashing composition draws the eye in completely. One can imagine the circuit map of the Mosport racetrack imposed over the surface of the composition, the upper curve of violet and teal, and lower curve of red, goldenrod, and sky blue reminiscent of the upper and lower bounds of the work’s namesake course.vi The eye becomes the racecar on the surface, looping infinitely across the variegated surface of Mosport.
i Frank Stella: 1970-1987, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1987, p. 95.
ii Ibid.
iii Frank Stella, quoted in Rubin, ibid.
iv Rubin, 98.
v Ibid.
vi For comparison, see a map of the Mosport racecourse here.Provenance
M. Knoedler & Co., New York
Park International Inc., New York
Edward F. Calsea, Basalt, Colorado
Stephen Way, Houston
Private Collection, United States
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2017Exhibited
New York, The Museum of Modern Art; Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Frank Stella 1970–1987, October 12, 1987–August 13, 1989, pp. 98, 99, 166 (illustrated, p. 99)
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia; Munich, Haus der Kunst, Frank Stella, September 26, 1995–April 21, 1996, pp. 211, 233 (illustrated, p. 211, erroneously dated 1984)Literature
Peter Brunette and David Wills, eds., Deconstruction and the Visual Arts: Art, Media and Architecture, New York, 1994, fig. 24, p. 181 (illustrated)
Sidney Guberman, Frank Stella: An Illustrated Biography, New York, 1995, p. 209 (illustrated)
Anthony J. Cascardi, ed., Postmodernisms Now, University Park, 1998, p. 208Artist Biography
Frank Stella
American • 1936 - N/A
One of the most important living artists, Frank Stella is recognized as the most significant painter that transitioned from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism. He believes that the painting should be the central object of interest rather than represenative of some subject outside of the work. Stella experimented with relief and created sculptural pieces with prominent properties of collage included. Rejecting the normalities of Minimalism, the artist transformed his style in a way that inspired those who had lost hope for the practice. Stella lives in Malden, Massachusetts and is based in New York and Rock Tavern, New York.
Property from a Distinguished Collection
22
Mosport 4.75X (Second Version)
mixed media on etched magnesium
110 1/4 x 129 1/2 x 19 in. (280 x 328.9 x 48.3 cm)
Executed in 1982.
Estimate
$350,000 - 550,000
Avery Semjen
Head of Sale, New Now
212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
New Now
New York Auction 8 March 2023
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