Working Space
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Overview
Here is a rare opportunity to view painting through the discerning eyes of one of the world's foremost abstract painters. Stella uses the crisis of representational art in sixteenth-century Italy to illuminate the crisis of abstraction in our time. Professionals, students, collectors and all lovers of art will find Stella's non-traditional evaluations of the masters' work controversial and his fresh concepts wonderfully provocative.Synopsis
Here is a rare opportunity to view painting through the discerning eyes of one of the world's foremost abstract painters. Stella uses the crisis of representational art in sixteenth-century Italy to illuminate the crisis of abstraction in our time. Professionals, students, collectors and all lovers of art will find Stella's non-traditional evaluations of the masters' work controversial and his fresh concepts wonderfully provocative.
Hilton Kramer - The Atlantic
Working Space comes as something of a bombshell. For this is a book that explodes a great many received ideas about abstraction...[It] is certainly one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject. What makes it so remarkable, of course, is that Stella is unquestionably the most celebrated abstract painter of his generation.
Editorials
New York Times Book Review
Mr. Stella's way of dealing with single paintings, 36 of which are reproduced in color, makes for one tour-de-force after another...Paintings familiar and unfamiliar, from the 'Mona Lisa' to Wassily Kandinsky's 'Composition IX,' gain a just washed sparkle.
— Peter Schjeldahl
The Atlantic
Working Space comes as something of a bombshell. For this is a book that explodes a great many received ideas about abstraction...[It] is certainly one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject. What makes it so remarkable, of course, is that Stella is unquestionably the most celebrated abstract painter of his generation.
— Hilton Kramer
Times Literary Supplement
It is seldom that a major artist is prepared to commit himself publicly to a considered, large-scale survey of the art of his time, and to relate it moreover to substantial cross-sections of the art of the past. Frank Stella has done this in his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, with considerable erudition, great verve and genuine originality.
— John Golding
Art International
Working Space develops its thesis with such gusto, elegance, and conviction...The text is rich with insight, integrity, and unexpected rethinkings of erstwhile familiar images.
— David Anfam
Philadelphia Inquirer
This is a marvelously insightful and thought-provoking book...Stella's perception of the problem is correct—abstraction has reached a watershed. His analysis of that problem is erudite and plausible, and at times even passionate. If he does not solve it within these pages, he at least has made us consider its ramifications, and he has enabled us to look at art from a valuable and rarely available perspective.
— Edward J. Sozanski
Philadelphia Inquirer
This is a marvelously insightful and thought-provoking book...Stella's perception of the problem is correct--abstraction has reached a watershed. His analysis of that problem is erudite and plausible, and at times even passionate. If he does not solve it within these pages, he at least has made us consider its ramifications, and he has enabled us to look at art from a valuable and rarely available perspective.— Edward J. Sozanski
New York Times Book Review
Mr. Stella's way of dealing with single paintings, 36 of which are reproduced in color, makes for one tour-de-force after another...Paintings familiar and unfamiliar, from the 'Mona Lisa' to Wassily Kandinsky's 'Composition IX,' gain a just washed sparkle.— Peter Schjeldahl
Times Literary Supplement
It is seldom that a major artist is prepared to commit himself publicly to a considered, large-scale survey of the art of his time, and to relate it moreover to substantial cross-sections of the art of the past. Frank Stella has done this in his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, with considerable erudition, great verve and genuine originality.— John Golding
The Atlantic
Working Space comes as something of a bombshell. For this is a book that explodes a great many received ideas about abstraction...[It] is certainly one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject. What makes it so remarkable, of course, is that Stella is unquestionably the most celebrated abstract painter of his generation.— Hilton Kramer
Art International
Working Space develops its thesis with such gusto, elegance, and conviction...The text is rich with insight, integrity, and unexpected rethinkings of erstwhile familiar images.— David Anfam