John McCracken, New Mexico, 1969. © Photo by Joe Goode
John McCracken, New Mexico, 1969. © Photo by Joe Goode
John McCracken
David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of works by American artist John McCracken at the gallery’s 616 North Western Avenue location in Los Angeles, presented on the ninetieth anniversary of his birth. Featuring a selection of the artist’s “planks” and “columns” installed in the round, this is the first solo presentation in McCracken’s longtime hometown in more than twenty years.
In bringing together two of his most enduring sculptural forms, the exhibition illuminates the artist’s nuanced modulation of color, shape, and surface that extended throughout his more than five-decade-long career.
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Image: Installation view, John McCracken, David Zwirner, New York, 2024
Dates
February 28—March 30, 2024
Opening Reception
Wednesday, February 28, 6–8 PM
Gallery Hours
Tues—Sat 10am–6pm
Artist
“California culture did of itself offer some inspiration for art, too. The style of the place was sort of willy-nilly creativity.… But the light in Los Angeles does something … that I was able to bounce my ideas off of in my track toward making what I felt in my intuition was possible.”
—John McCracken, 2005
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated December 13, 1975
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated December 13, 1975
McCracken developed his early sculptural work while studying painting at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in the late 1950s and early 1960s. While experimenting with increasingly three-dimensional canvases, the artist began to create objects made with industrial materials, including plywood, sprayed lacquer, and pigmented resin, resulting in the highly reflective, smooth surfaces for which he has become known.
John McCracken
Untitled (Red Plank), 1976
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
84 1/8 x 12 x 1 1/4 inches (213.7 x 30.5 x 3.2 cm)
“McCracken has always viewed the objects he makes as metaphorical bridges between different states of reality—what can be seen and touched, and what remains unseen.… Far from Minimalist, [he] is able to assert the seductiveness of material and surface without disallowing association, and to embrace these contradictions.”
—Donna De Salvo, curator, Dia Art Foundation
John McCracken
Untitled, 1982
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
95 x 16 x 2 1/8 inches (241.3 x 40.6 x 5.4 cm)
John McCracken, Untitled, 1982 (detail)
John McCracken, Untitled, 1982 (detail)
In the late 1960s McCracken relocated to LA, where he remained a fixture of the burgeoning art scene there through the early 1990s, when he moved to Santa Fe. His work—which has been uniquely influential to subsequent generations of artists—came to represent a distinctively West Coast take on the ascendant minimalist aesthetic coming out of New York in those years.
John McCracken near his studio in New Mexico, 1996
John McCracken near his studio in New Mexico, 1996
“The overwhelming, vivifying circumstance upon which this work was founded is the status and light and space in the American Southwest as a benign presence rather than a stark absence.… The particulate desert and ocean that pervaded this atmosphere is illuminated from above and below, presenting itself to our eyes as a palpable presence. In the West … light is a thing, a local truth.”
—Dave Hickey, critic
John McCracken
Link, 2000
Polyester resin, fiber glass, and wood
91 1/4 x 15 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (231.8 x 38.7 x 7.0 cm)
In opposition to the industrially produced, non-referential objects that their East Coast peers were producing, McCracken and his contemporaries offered sculptures made from synthetic materials, such as plastic and fiberglass, and highly finished surfaces, often in combination with light and luminescent shades of color that brought to mind the dappled California sun, LA’s vibrant cars and surfboards, or a multitude of other points of reference.
John McCracken in Santa Barbara, c. 1980
John McCracken in Santa Barbara, c. 1980
John McCracken in Santa Barbara, c. 1980
John McCracken in Santa Barbara, c. 1980
“In their indifference to conventional concerns such as harmony and balance, [the planks] throw the viewer off. Yet their high craftsmanship clearly differentiates them from the world of ordinary things by emphasizing the degree of care that has been lavished upon them; it works to force an aesthetic evaluation rather than a mere acceptance of them as non-functional objects of the ordinary environment.”
—Barbara Rose, critic and art historian
John McCracken
Untitled, 1982
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
93 x 15 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (236.2 x 39.4 x 4.4 cm)
Installation view, John McCracken, Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1995
Installation view, John McCracken, Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1995
John McCracken
Black Plank, 1988
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
94 x 14 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches (238.8 x 37.5 x 3.2 cm)
Though sleek in their highly glossed appearance, McCracken’s own geometric forms were hand-crafted, meticulously constructed from plywood coated with fiberglass and layers of pigmented polyester resin and taken to a high polish, so much so that they in part reflect the world around them.
John McCracken
Aqua, 2002
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
92 1/8 x 14 x 3 7/8 inches (234 x 35.6 x 9.8 cm)
John McCracken in his studio, c. 1989
John McCracken in his studio, c. 1989
Color was an integral element of McCracken’s practice. The artist mixed the color of each of these works by hand, keeping careful notes on his recipes and whether he felt they were successful. The majority of his planks were made in a monochromatic finish, however the artist considered similar or even identical forms executed in differing hues to be entirely individuated artworks that engage with their surroundings in a distinct way.
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated 1965
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated 1965
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated January 20, 1966
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated January 20, 1966
“Roughly the size of a plank of lumber, the leaning pieces were so casual as to seem like jokes, except that their intense hues and flawless surfaces projected dignity and beauty; they often seemed to be made of solid color, but also had a totemic presence.”
—Roberta Smith, chief critic, The New York Times
Installation view, John McCracken, David Zwirner, New York, 2024
Installation view, John McCracken, David Zwirner, New York, 2024
John McCracken
Wave, 2004
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
96 x 30 x 16 inches (243.8 x 76.2 x 40.6 cm)
John McCracken
Chieftain, 1992
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
96 1/8 x 29 7/8 x 17 inches (244.2 x 75.9 x 43.2 cm)
McCracken’s columns explore the phenomenological relationship between work, viewer, and architecture through their outsized stature. Each standing around eight feet in height, these rectangular or faceted forms conjure a range of everyday and otherworldly associations. The viewer is able to see themselves and their surroundings fully reflected back in these surfaces.
John McCracken, Chieftain, 1992 (detail)
John McCracken, Chieftain, 1992 (detail)
John McCracken
Be, 2004
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
94 x 17 x 19 inches (238.8 x 43.2 x 48.3 cm)
“The column sculptures developed partly from McCracken’s preoccupation with ancient Greek and Egyptian architecture, and from his association of strong vertical forms with a combination of optimism and ethical rectitude, or ‘heroic stance,’ as he coined it.”
—Robin Clark, art historian
McCracken in his studio with Copernicus, 1988
McCracken in his studio with Copernicus, 1988
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated September 15, 1971
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated September 15, 1971
John McCracken
Cosmos, 2001
Lacquer, polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
92 1/2 x 20 x 11 1/2 inches (235 x 50.8 x 29.2 cm)
“Even today, the works … look brand new, as if they were just made. To experience them, to be immediately aware of the untouchable, otherwordly radiance, is to be aware of nothing but the absolute present.”
—Frances Colpitt, art historian
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated January 12, 1972
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated January 12, 1972
John McCracken
Diamond, 2006
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood in eight (8) parts
Each: 37 x 5 x 6 1/2 inches (94 x 12.7 x 16.5 cm)
Overall: 37 x 192 x 6 1/2 inches (94 x 487.7 x 16.5 cm)
Overall: 37 x 192 x 6 1/2 inches (94 x 487.7 x 16.5 cm)
Finally, the exhibition also features one of McCracken’s multipart wall reliefs. Executed in 2006, the work exists in the interstices of painting and sculpture. Here, the artist presents eight evenly spaced, monochromatic rectangular components across a wall. The work's title, Diamond, reinforces the synesthetic link between color, form, and image.
John McCracken, Diamond, 2006 (detail)
John McCracken, Diamond, 2006 (detail)
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated April 24, 1972
From the artist’s sketchbook, dated April 24, 1972
“I went kind of full tilt with my ideas. I was purely inventing as much as I was thinking, but I was mainly trying to make things that had a strong existence. They had to be interesting, beautiful, have the right scale and bearing, and have obvious, convincing being.… If that were achieved, then the sculpture, the work, would be able to speak for itself.”
—John McCracken, 2005
Installation view, John McCracken, David Zwirner, New York, 2024
Installation view, John McCracken, David Zwirner, New York, 2024
Inquire About Works by John McCracken
John McCracken
Untitled, 1976
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
84 x 12 x 1 1/4 inches (213.4 x 30.5 x 3.2 cm)
John McCracken
Untitled (Red Plank), 1976
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
84 1/8 x 12 x 1 1/4 inches (213.7 x 30.5 x 3.2 cm)
John McCracken
Untitled, 1982
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
95 x 16 x 2 1/8 inches (241.3 x 40.6 x 5.4 cm)
John McCracken
Cordella, 1988-1992
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
95 x 11 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches (241.3 x 29.2 x 3.2 cm)
John McCracken
Silver, 2006
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
93 1/8 x 17 x 3 3/4 inches (236.5 x 43.2 x 9.5 cm)
John McCracken
Link, 2000
Polyester resin, fiber glass, and wood
91 1/4 x 15 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (231.8 x 38.7 x 7.0 cm)
John McCracken
Untitled, 2011
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
100 x 15 x 2 inches (254 x 38.1 x 5.1 cm)
John McCracken
Aqua, 2002
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
92 1/8 x 14 x 3 7/8 inches (234 x 35.6 x 9.8 cm)
John McCracken
Untitled, 1982
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
93 x 15 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (236.2 x 39.4 x 4.4 cm)
John McCracken
Untitled, 2011
Stainless steel
93 3/4 x 14 5/8 x 1 3/8 inches (238.1 x 37.1 x 3.5 cm)
John McCracken
Black Plank, 1988
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
94 x 14 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches (238.8 x 37.5 x 3.2 cm)
John McCracken
Be, 2004
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
94 x 17 x 19 inches (238.8 x 43.2 x 48.3 cm)
John McCracken
Cosmos, 2001
Lacquer, polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
92 1/2 x 20 x 11 1/2 inches (235 x 50.8 x 29.2 cm)
John McCracken
Wave, 2004
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
96 x 30 x 16 inches (243.8 x 76.2 x 40.6 cm)
John McCracken
Siskiyou, 1988
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
96 x 27 x 14 inches (243.8 x 68.6 x 35.6 cm)
John McCracken
Chieftain, 1992
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
96 1/8 x 29 7/8 x 17 inches (244.2 x 75.9 x 43.2 cm)
John McCracken
Form, 2006
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
89 x 17 x 11 inches (226.1 x 43.2 x 27.9 cm)
John McCracken
Hotshot, 2006
Polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood
92 x 17 x 12 inches (233.7 x 43.2 x 30.5 cm)