"Frank Stella on the Roof"

The New York Times

2 May 2007



"Frank Stella on the Roof" atop the Metropolitan Museum of Art features two large sculptures, a mammoth piece titled "Chinese Pavilion" and two smaller sculptures. After 11 tense days of preparations, the exhibition, which runs through Oct. 28, opened Tuesday in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. A section of stainless steel tubing from the sculpture "adjoeman" (2004) is lowered slowly toward the northern end of the roof garden.



"Chinese Pavilion," which the Met bills as an "architectural structure," was fabricated in Brazil. Conceived specifically for the show, the 5,500-pound structure was brought to New York in a container ship before arriving by truck at the Met, where it had to be hoisted atop the roof in eight sections. About a dozen steel plates were positioned on the roof to protect the garden’s granite surface and firmly anchor the sculptures.



Mr. Stella, who lives in Manhattan, traveled uptown to the Met each day to oversee the installation. After the hoisting of the sections was completed, he reviewed the floor plan that had been devised by the Met’s curators in consultation with engineers and the artist. "It was a dialogue about aesthetics and space and what would work best," said Anne Strauss, a lead curator, at right.



Mr. Stella’s workers, who traveled from his studio in upstate New York, to assemble the artworks, worked on welding and bolting the looping pieces of "adjoeman," fashioned from 3,100 pounds of stainless steel and carbon. Given that they helped the artist create it and had recently dismantled it for transport, they were familiar with every nook and cranny. The work’s title is translated as "showing off" or "decorative" in Balinese, the museum said.



The 2,000-pound carbon-and-stainless-steel sculpture "memantra" (2005). According to the Met, the title is a verbal form of "mantra," which means prayer or incantation in Balinese. The day before the press preview, Mr. Stella asked Robert van Winkle, right, to reweld two pieces to adjust the sculpture’s placement.



Workers bolted additional parts to "Chinese Pavilion." One of the goals of the sculpture’s placement, said Ms. Strauss, was to maximize the way that Mr. Stella’s swooping, sloping works resonate against the "more rigorous architectural setting" of the Manhattan skyline.



During a press preview on Monday, April 30, Mr. Stella scrutinized the show’s two smaller sculptures, "Chapel of the Holy Ghost (Model)" from 1992, and "Chinese Pavilion (Model)" from 1993. "He’s been thinking about 'Chinese Pavilion' for so many years," Ms. Strauss said. "He was delighted that it was finally opening day."



The completed "memantra," with a southwest view over Central Park toward Columbus Circle.



A melding of mediums: inside Mr. Stella's fully assembled "Chinese Pavilion."