A star is born: New sculpture celebrates 100th anniversary of Jacksonville museum

The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville kicked off a year-long celebration of its centennial Thursday by unveiling a soaring new sculpture by a renowned artist.

Jacksonville Stacked Stars is a series of aluminum beams, bolted and welded together to form a pair of star shapes, one atop the other. It's on display in MOCA Jacksonville's central atrium, but unlike previous Project Atrium exhibitions, this one is intended to be permanent.

The sculpture, created by artist Frank Stella specifically for MOCA, is scheduled to remain on display until Aug. 18 but was designed so that it can eventually be displayed outdoors. Museum officials are looking for a permanent home for it in Jacksonville.

Stella, 84, rose to prominence in the 1960s, primarily as a painter of abstract images. Museums and galleries from Fort Lauderdale to Poland have held solo exhibitions of his work, and he was awarded with the National Medal of Arts in 2009. At least 30 of Stella's works have fetched a million dollars or more in Christie's art auctions, with his "Point of Pines" selling for more than $28 million in 2019.

MOCA Jacksonville previously hosted an exhibition of his prints, "Frank Stella Unbound," in 2018. His works were also included in a 2016 printmaking exhibition at the museum. Six of his prints are held in the museum's permanent collection and the current exhibition includes seven of his prints, some from the collection, others borrowed from local collectors.

Stella has used stars in paintings and sculptures throughout his career. In 2020-21, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut had an exhibit, Frank Stella's Stars, A Survey, that collected 25 of his pieces, spanning more than half a century. Stella was not at Thursday's unveiling of Jacksonville Stacked Stars.

Scores of brushed aluminum beams in Jacksonville Stacked Stars created dozens of points. You have to look closely to see if it's one continuous piece or if one is stacked on the other.

It celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of MOCA, which traces its roots to the Jacksonville Fine Arts Society, formed in 1924 by a group of women interested in educating the public about modern art. It became the Jacksonville Art Museum in Riverside in 1948 before moving to the Koger Center in the '60s. It moved to its current downtown location overlooking James Weldon Johnson Park in 2003. It became part of the University of North Florida in 2009.

History: MOCA Jacksonville's Project Atrium marks 10 years of oversized art projects

Photos: 10 years of Project Atrium at MOCA Jacksonville

The atrium, with three walls reaching 40 feet to the ceiling, has seen a wide variety of displays since the first was installed in 2011. Most of the Project Atrium shows were specifically commissioned to take advantage of the space. Artists have hung things from the ceiling, colored the walls with Sharpie pens, relived their internet browsing history and covered the walls with cracks inspired by a worn parking lot. There have been fabric installations, inflatable sculptures, works that play with light and dark and at least one performance artist.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Frank Stella sculpture marks MOCA Jacksonville's 100th year