/ / R | | P \ \ for the recently departed
John McCracken (1934 – 2011), a West Coast artist who brought a
New Age openness to
Minimalist sculpture, along with a vocabulary of
bright,
sleek slabs,
blocks and
columns that balanced teasingly between
painting and sculpture.
McCracken differed from the
Minimalists — and from the Los Angeles “
light and space” and “
finish fetish” artists with whom his work was also affiliated — in his belief in
U.F.O.s, extra-terrestrials and time-travel. In interviews that gave his work a distinct frame of reference, he frequently likened his art to something that an alien visitor might leave behind on earth.
McCracken was bedeviled by
Stanley Kubrick's famously obscure science-fiction epic, "
2001: A Space Odyssey," with its iconic image of an ancient monolith floating in outer space. The 1968 blockbuster was released two years after the artist made his
first plank.
"At the time, some people thought I had designed the monolith or that it had been derived from my work," he told art critic
Frances Colpitt of the coincidence in a 1998 interview.
[Post paraphrased from several linked obituaries: LA Times, NY Times]
posted by not_on_display at 4:31 PM on April 11, 2011