Sacramento Mall Proposal #4 1978

Frank Stella made this hard-edge painting, Sacramento Mall Proposal #4, with enamel on canvas. Just imagine Stella in his studio, meticulously taping and painting one square inside another. What a feat of concentration! You know, making this painting couldn't have been a quick thing, it's all about precision, you can see the hand there, it is super controlled. The lines are crisp, and the colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple—vibrate against each other. It's like he's drilling down into the very essence of painting. The symmetry, the flat surface, and those cool, clean lines all relate to Stella's other paintings that question what a painting is, what it can be, and what its relationship to architecture or sculpture might be. The stripes remind me of Agnes Martin's grids, but also kind of prefigure digital space. Artists like Stella are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring new ways of seeing and making. There's a lot to unpack in this deceptively simple painting!