The new Frank Stella retrospective at the Whitney is way, way too much: too many pieces, too many bright colors, and too many words of wall text to explain each new material. That is both its downfall and what makes it fun. With 120 works jammed into an 18,000-foot gallery (an entire floor of the Whitney’s new building), the exhibition unapologetically maximizes the space it occupies. Curated with the participation of the artist himself, the show succeeds in tracking Stella’s development from calculating college senior to expressive modernist. Where it falls short, though, is in its overcrowding. There is barely room to breathe, much less engage with pieces on any meaningful level, between the endless parade of sculptures and massive paintings.

A 40-foot mural, entitled “Das Eirbeden in Chili,” greets patrons as they stream out of the elevator. This colorful 1999 baroque-inspired painting that Stella describes as “maximalist” stands in stark contrast beside a more ordered work from early in his career. This dialectic between early order and later exploratory chaos bookends the exhibition’s thematic narrative.

From here, the exhibit proceeds chronologically, with a focus on Stella’s processes in the first few rooms. The story starts with “Die Fahne Hoc!” and other minimalist black paintings. This is an intentional scaling back after the overstated mural in the first room. Stella’s black pieces are designed with mathematical precision. Every pinstripe and angle against a black background is planned. In this first room, the wall text, without prescribing a reading, offers insight into the methods Stella used to craft these works. It is grounding to hear quotes from the artist himself about how he crafted these first black pieces, and it enhances the experience to see his early sketches presented in frames alongside the corresponding finished products.

However, this focus on process drops off after the second room, to the exhibit’s detriment. It would have been helpful if this thread had continued as the exhibit moved into his later pieces, which are more visually and structurally complex.

While the wall text moves away from a focus on process, it continues to play a prominent role in the next rooms of the exhibition. Almost every paragraph of wall text begins with a quotation from Stella before a paragraph written by the voice of an anonymous curator. Stella is thoughtful, and often academic, in his consideration of his own works. Forged in the hallowed halls of Andover and Princeton, Stella’s concepts reference Moby Dick, medieval manuscripts, geometric tools, and architecture.

These pieces of wall text also demonstrate a downside to Stella’s active participation in the exhibit—the tone of the labels is overly flattering at times. It’s not that Stella isn’t deserving of praise for being a revolutionary artist, but it’s hard not to wonder what the wall text would have said had it not been written knowing it would be seen by the artist. The wall text’s presentation of his role as a maverick feels forced: emphasizing that “Stella’s refusal to settle into a signature style has made him an anomaly,” and that “Stella has always been willing to explore or invent new techniques.” The paragraphs sound like they are pushing the artist’s own agenda.

There are also parts of the exhibition where Stella’s influence plays out more subtly and successfully—the physical gallery space is designed according to principles Stella emphasizes in his work. In thinking about his art, Stella expresses his desire that, “the boundaries be felt in the right way—they are defining, but not limiting.” So the exhibition space is cleverly organized to avoid total borders between rooms and phases. Inside the exhibit, temporary white dividers help break up the space without creating hermetic seals between sections. The only true walls are the four outer walls of the large exhibition space.

The lack of borders is all the more apparent, because of the drastic changes within the space: after the stark black paintings of the first section, the exhibit becomes a carnival. Electrifying colors cascade over visitors as they maneuver around three-dimensional pieces. Room after room is packed with massive objects that could each take up a room on their own. “Zeltweg,” a 1982 mixed media piece, evokes a racecar track: jutting out from the wall, overlaid magnesium ribbons form a towering tangle. The placement of an object this bright and visually taxing right next to other objects of equal intensity makes it difficult to walk through the exhibit without getting a headache. In attempting to look at an object from a side angle, viewers run the risk of bumping into the piece jutting out next to it. While all of these works are compelling on their own, putting them right next to each other makes the experience of looking at them draining.

So the room overlooking the Hudson offers a much-needed chance to breathe.  A vast glass window greets you as you enter a room full of blond wood and metal. After several rooms of glitter and neon shades, this room provides the respite it wasn’t clear was necessary until it presented itself.

This room’s centerpiece is “The Raft of the Medusa,” inspired in part by Gericault’s painting by the same name. It is composed of found objects cast in melted aluminum. Boldly colorless, its edges fray and wrap around it. It towers over visitors. If seen from the right angle, it melds into the water of the Hudson through the window right behind it. This object is so attractive partly because there aren’t equally towering objects right next to it.

Sitting alongside this piece is a collection of objects more manageable in scale. This 16-piece series of works entitled the “Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich” pays homage to Malevich and Calder, two earlier revolutionary expressionists. It comprises several wooden tables with clean square tops—a reference to Malevich’s squares. Atop the tables rest several metallic creatures whose thin metal tubes are reminiscent of Calder’s mobiles. I heard another viewer laugh and say that it’s tempting to pick one of these pieces up in his pocket and carry it away. That idea stems from the radically manageable scale of these pieces. Unlike the enormous works that have dominated so far, these objects are attractive in their smallness. It’s refreshing to look closely at an object smaller than my body after feeling dwarfed in comparison to all the big things.

“The Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich” signals a transition into the final sections of the exhibit, which depict Stella as an artist ready to explore expressive gesture. This is a definitive departure from his cleanly organized first works. So the next room is crowded with more large-scale colorful pieces. In his 2009 work “K.81 Combo (K.37 and K.43) large size,” Stella plays at the juncture between music and art. He wraps pieces of brightly painted metal around each other to form an unwieldy ball that stands on four legs of stainless steel tubing. With this piece, Stella goes one step beyond the compelling but established dialogue between visual and auditory. He adds a temporal dimension to this discussion, intending for viewers to spend time walking around his piece.

Lingering here, I try to block out the rest of the neon bright and assertively dimensional pieces sharing the space. It’s more difficult than it should be. As a space to deeply encounter objects, this exhibition is not ideal. It’s too much of a lively bazaar to allow for contemplation. But as a space to become re-enchanted with the playful capacity of visual spaces, this exhibition nails it.