Frank Stella, Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich, 4 Square Circus, 16 parts, 2009

Mark Joshua Epstein: When I look at this work, I notice that it has all of these really small sculptures that look almost like toys or experiments. I notice materials like wire and other kinds of metal that are twisted together. I can start to imagine these things coming to life when the lights of the Museum go off. They almost look like they’re ready to untwist or bend or start walking across the tables and then onto the floor across the galleries. Some of them seem like they’re springs, and like they’re waiting to explode, whereas some of them seem like they would open up more slowly, almost like a flower.

When Frank Stella was making this work, he was thinking of another artist, Alexander Calder, who has a piece called the [Calder’s] Circus up on the seventh floor of this Museum. I definitely want to encourage you to go up to the seventh floor and look at what Alexander Calder calls his circus. You’ll see some similarities with the material. Calder’s also using wire and he’s also making small-scale sculptures.