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| The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella |
The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella
1993
Aluminum and steel sculpture
22' High and 12' x 15' Base
Location: Lobby of the Metcalfe Federal Building
77 W. Jackson Blvd, the Loop, Chicago
Commissioned by the U.S. GSA Art-in-Architecture program
GSA is General Services Administration
Frank Stella was born in 1936 in Malden, Massachusetts, and studied in Princeton Universty. He is an internationally known artist whose United States collection includes the Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum at Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
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| The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella |
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| The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella The monumental piece represents a phase odf Stella's work, which has moved progressively during his 35 year career from flat canvases to painted reliefs and free standing sculptures. Balanced on structural gridwork, the sculpture rises like a geyser in an intricate arrangement of shaped castings, honeycombed aluminum, and covered and twisted fragments of salvaged maetal. The work's materials and character reflects Chicago's industrial origins, and title "Town-Ho's Story" is taken from Merman Melville's allegorical novel Moby Dick. Since 1985, the book has inspired more than 130 of the artist's work in various media. According to Robert K. Wallace, a Melville Scholar and author of a book on Stella, “The sculpture takes its name from a chapter of Melville’s novel that is a tale aout Steelkilt, an audacious sailor who uses both mind and fist to resist mistreatment.” the sculpture "embodies similar energies in aluminum and steel, using the power of abstraction to compress into one expansive space the gleaming, combative essence of literary work and an American city. To fabricate this massive abstraction, Frank Stella combined several small metal sculptures into one large piece and poured molten aluminum over the structure to create an enhanced, cohesive form. |
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| The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella |
The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella
7 comments:
This is a piece of junk!
I saw this the other day. It is so gawd awful that I had to look to see who got paid off to dump the waste on a federal building. Its not only junk, its a horrendous. The thing even smell bad!
I imagine that this is what a lint ball looks like if you magnify it 1,000,000 times. Question is: where is the large waste basket that it belongs in?
thanks for posting this info; I always wondered what that ball of smashed-up stuff was in that building
FWIW, I worked there on 13th floor when it was delivered. They had to dismantle the whole front of the building when it was delivered at night.
I also saw the 'dedication' celebration when I was leaving work late one night as it was being held in the lobby.
What a hoot!
According to Robert K. Wallace, a Melville Scholar and author of a book on Stella, “The sculpture takes its name from a chapter of Melville’s novel that is a tale about Steelkilt, an audacious sailor who uses both mind and fist to resist mistreatment.”
I think this piece is wonderful! I am struck by the negative criticism and mistreatment.
The Town-Ho was attacked by Moby Dick. I think the expert on Stella has missed the boat on this one. If you look at it in person, you can see that it is a ship and a whale next to it. The whale's fin/tale is clearly visible in the top photo with a harpoon sticking out of it. The ship is visible in the bottom picture, but is hard to see. It is the left side of the ship and it is pointed to the left in the photo. If you see it in person it is clearer. Start by looking at the bottom and imagine the base to actually be the surface of the ocean. The V shaped piece of metal is the underside of the ship. The whale is a crumpled piece of metal sitting next to this. Its really not that hard to see it.
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