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2/20/76

Frank:

Isn't this a terrifically intelligent understanding of the metallic paintings? Smithson wrote it in 1966:

"The impure-purist surface is very much in evidence in the new abstract art, but I think Stella was the first to employ it. The iridescent purple, green and silver surfaces that followed Stella's all-black works conveyed a rather lurid presence through their symmetries. An exacerbated, gorgeous color gives a chilling bite to the purist context. Immaculate beginnings are subsumed by glittering ends. Like Mallarme's "Herodiade," these surfaces disclose a "cold scintillation"; they seem to "love the horror of being virgin." These inaccessible surfaces deny any definite meaning in the most definite way. Here beauty is allied with the revulsive in accordance with highly rigid rules. One's sight is mentally abolished by Stella's hermetic kingdom of surfaces."

What's strange is that the sound is the sound of Surrealism, the accents of Malodor and Breton, and yet he is the only one that seems to realize what you once told me so few people realized [[arrow pointing to margin]] (INCLUDING Me) [[/arrow pointing to margin]] : that the metallic paintings were more about color than the rainbows were.

C'mon. Admit the [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] kid was good.(If Clem had liked him he might have become a Michael Steiner.)

Phil

P.S. If the Russians win the only art critic in America will be Kozloff, do you realize that? Quick, arms for Angola!