Untitled

- Painting (Painting)

John McCracken

year born: 1934
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: Berkeley, California

Though not strictly representational, some objects in Untitled (1962) are recognizable: a flower, an egg, a foot. The arrows and directional lines suggest movement, but the forms they point to intertwine, prohibiting a straightforward reading. The shapes are as illustrative as a Rorschach inkblot; in their confounding, simple indeterminacy, they depict nothing and everything at once.


Born in Berkeley and educated at California College of the Arts, John McCracken was a pioneer of American Minimalism and is often associated with the Light and Space movement. His plank pieces—high-gloss, lacquered, monochromatic monoliths that lean against the wall—defy the boundary between painting and sculpture, object and viewer. Their bases rest in the observer’s space, and their varnished surfaces reflect the surrounding environment. Though best known for his bright colors and polished aesthetic, McCracken’s body of work is diverse, ranging from minimalist sculpture to abstract painting. The work is consistently characterized by a search for simplicity, beauty, and the sublime.


Colors:



Untitled (Construction)
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Larry Bell

2007

Untitled (Construction) recalls the series of glass cubes that gained Bell international recognition in the 1960s...

VFGY9
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Larry Bell

1979

Like many of Larry Bell’s works, VFGY9 deals primarily with the viewer’s experience of sight...

Untitled (San Francisco)
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Edward Kienholz

1984

Untitled (San Francisco) was made in Idaho in 1984 and was facetiously dedicated to Henry Hopkins, the then director of the San Francisco Museum of Art who added “modern” to its name...

Related works featuring themes of: » Abstract Sculpture, » Columns and Totems, » Light and Space Movement, » Line, Form and Color, » American  
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Map (from Uncertain Pilgrimage), 2006-2009
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Gareth Moore

2006

Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...

Sound of Ice Melting
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Paul Kos

1970

Sound of Ice Melting is based on the ancient Zen Buddhist koan about the sound of one hand clapping...

Untitled (Construction)
© » KADIST

Larry Bell

2007

Untitled (Construction) recalls the series of glass cubes that gained Bell international recognition in the 1960s...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Map (from Uncertain Pilgrimage), 2006-2009
© » KADIST

Gareth Moore

2006

Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...

Sound of Ice Melting
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1970

Sound of Ice Melting is based on the ancient Zen Buddhist koan about the sound of one hand clapping...

Collapse
© » KADIST

Will Rogan

2007

Shot in the streets of Tokyo, Collapse , is a meditation on the passing of time and on the complicated way in which we are smashed between the past and the future...

West (Flag 1) (Flag 3) (Flag 6)
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Alexandre da Cunha

2011

The series West (Flag 1), West (Flag 3), and West (Flag 6) continues da Cunha’s ongoing exploration of the form’s various vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stripes...

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Illusion of Matter
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Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

2015

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s performance Illusion of Matter establishes a dream state through a composition of motifs that were drawn from the artist’s childhood memories...

A Look Inside ‘A Love Supreme’ at Chicago’s Elmhurst Art Museum
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Review: ‘A Love Supreme’ at Elmhurst Art Museum | Observer Norman Teague...

Mapping Asian Arts Media: Key Findings (Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia)
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Mapping Asian Arts Media: Key Findings (Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles March 5, 2021 By Kathy Rowland What is the state of the arts media landscape in Southeast Asia? Based on global trends, the answer seemed evident: the landscape has shrunk, and its impact on the arts ecosystem is a growing concern amongst arts writers, artists and policy makers...

Colectivo TercerUnQuinto Part 1
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TercerUnQuinto, interviewed by Michele Fiedler....

Related artist(s) to: John McCracken » Donald Judd, » Bruce Nauman, » Dan Flavin, » Larry Bell, » Sol Lewitt, » Andrea Bellini, » Carl Andre, » Christopher Williams, » Lawrence Weiner, » Rodney Graham  
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Tree on the Former Site of Camera Obscura
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Rodney Graham

1996

Tree on the Former Site of Camera Obscura (1996) belongs to a series of large-scale photographs of trees taken by Graham and depicts a particular species that lives in Northern California...

Ponderosa Pine IV
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Rodney Graham

1991

Ponderosa Pine IV belongs to a series of large-scale photographs of trees taken by Graham and depicts a particular species that live in Northern California...

Untitled (Construction)
© » KADIST

Larry Bell

2007

Untitled (Construction) recalls the series of glass cubes that gained Bell international recognition in the 1960s...

VFGY9
© » KADIST

Larry Bell

1979

Like many of Larry Bell’s works, VFGY9 deals primarily with the viewer’s experience of sight...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Ballerina
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Liu Yin

2010

Liu Yin brings the tension of a small but imminent catastrophe into the gallery with a raw egg balanced on the edge of a folding table....

Collectors the World over Are Buying Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa - via The Economist
© » LARRY'S LIST

At a recent auction in London, a gallery paid five times the top estimate for a series of photographs...

The artist who chronicled a generation lost to AIDS
© » I-D VICE PHOTO

The artist who chronicled a generation lost to AIDS advertisement...