The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 18, 2024
Çatal Hüyük (level VI B) Shrine VI B.1
2001
(American, b. 1936)
Overall: 246.3 x 322.4 x 231 cm (96 15/16 x 126 15/16 x 90 15/16 in.)
© Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Location: 001B ArtLens Exhibition
Did You Know?
This object weighs 1,750 pounds and projects eight feet from the wall.Description
This work derives its title from the religious shrines uncovered at the excavation site of the neolithic town of Çatal Hüyük (around 6000 BC) in modern-day Turkey. The paintings on plaster discovered in these shrines are considered to be the earliest on man-made surfaces. Indeed, Stella's abstract sculpture evokes the animal and hunting scenes found there. Constructed of cast, welded, and bolted aluminum, it also evokes modern industrial imagery. Although it explodes with energy, Çatal Hüyük contains its power within a unified composition. The swirling aluminum pipe at its core recalls the Golden Spiral, a unit of measure in nature and mathematics that visually resembles the cross section of a snail's shell. Since the late 1950s, Frank Stella has renewed and challenged the contemporary art world by investigating opposites—flatness and depth, simplicity and complexity, painting and sculpture—in his art. In the 1970s and 1980s, he introduced three-dimensional paintings on shaped canvases and then wall constructions on painted metal (see 1991.29). This work represents the latest stage in his explorations—huge, multipart compositions that hang on the wall but project ever further into the viewer's space.- the artist
- Cleveland Museum of Art, “Gift of Major New Stella Sculpture, Purchases of 6th-Century Jeweled Buckle, Ancient Indian Bronze Ancient Mexican Stone Head Among CMA’s Autumn Acquisitions,” December 26, 2001, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.orgDonley, Gregory M., "Mapping New Train ", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 42 no. 03, March 2002 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5 archive.org
- Artlens Exhibition 2019. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer).Artlens Exhibition 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24, 2017-May 29, 2019).New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery: Frank Stella, Recent Work (November 17-December 22, 2001), no catalogue (this sculpture removed from exhibiiton on December 3rd).
- {{cite web|title=Çatal Hüyük (level VI B) Shrine VI B.1|url=false|author=Frank Stella|year=2001|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2001.126