Frank Stella in Morro Castle

Frank Stella in Morro Castle (2008) places the artist's figure within one of his earliest black paintings now transformed into a top-down arcade game. Photographs shot by Hollis Frampton in Frank Stella's studio during the creation of Morro Castle (1958) animate the avatar of the artist. The painting's twenty-five black stripes fuse into a single labyrinthine pathway while two divergent stairways convert the nonrepresentational marks into the very castle suggested by the title. Controlling Stella, the player must slowly trace the path pioneered by the artist's brush in order to reach either staircase. Arriving at the finish, Stella's figure ascends or descends only to reappear from the opposing stair. The scoreboard in the bottom right corner tallies as one vertically traverses a stack of two dimensional floors in this castle of infinite height and depth.

Play the Game

At Mason Murer

in Atlanta, GA on August 14 to September 11, 2009

At the School of Art and Art History

in Gainesville, FL on November 18, 2009

Screenshots