Frank Stella, Visiting Artist Lecture 1982

Artist Frank Stella lectures on the advancement of abstraction in relation to figuration, particularly human figuration. Stella cites Piet Mondrian as a painter who, after confronting Cubism and uncovering abstraction’s potential to overcome its spatial inferiority, was able to extend the effort towards abstraction. He contrasts Mondrian with Pablo Picasso, whom he characterizes as “retrenching” in the wake of his cubist inventions.