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LOS ANGELES — You wouldn’t expect to feel uplifted by visiting a minimalist exhibition with a cold, intellectual feel. But a look at David Zwirner Los Angeles’ John McCracken’s 35-year study of gleaming, monochromatic boards and columns can certainly provoke such a reaction. This artist has long been associated with Southern California’s Finish Light and Space Movement in his fetish sector, and his work has been included in Landmark. primary structure But here, his sculptural installations create a holistic world that offers a new understanding of his unique approach. While most minimalists sought to reduce or eliminate a work of art’s capacity for expressiveness or figurative content, McCracken’s sculptures, both individually and collectively, do just the opposite.
As stand-alone works, McCracken’s boards and columns recall Barnett Newman’s vertical zippers, or the lightning-like vertical lines that jut out from his abstract paintings. Newman intended to evoke the infinite and the sublime in his work, and the expressive strength of his canvases can inspire experiences of heightened consciousness and elation.
Indeed, McCracken admired Newman’s art. Standing in front of a narrow plank work like “Untitled (Red Plank)” (1976), the reflective surfaces of the hand-painted layers of pigmented resin that frame my body strike Newman in his zip in a transcendent moment. You will feel as if you have entered. Such empathic engagement can create disparate emotional states, as the artist utilized pure saturated colors in a manner reminiscent of Ellsworth Kelly’s color field paintings. For example, red conveys a feeling of joy or passion, while black conveys a mystical or sinister atmosphere. One of his notable exceptions to the exhibition’s palette of bright reds, deep blacks, marine blues, forest greens, and smoky grays of pigmented resin is his work with stainless steel plates that act as mirrors, reminiscent of Yayoi Kusama. It’s “Untitled” (2011). infinity room (ongoing since 1965) in a way that reproduces both ourselves and the space around us.
Considered as an overall environment, McCracken’s installation is a combination of color and lighting that moves between sculptures, supported by the architectural logic of a central column surrounded by walls lined with sloping planks. The changing interaction allows it to adapt neatly to the light and spatial environment. Unlike Robert Irwin’s more meditative installations, which unfold through subtle perceptions over time, there is nothing understated about McCracken’s primal, sensuous world. Far from the Zen-like serenity that inspired Irwin’s work, McCracken’s sculptures seem more suited to the hymns and chants of a religious choir.
John McCracken It runs through March 30 at David Zwirner (616 North Western Avenue). The exhibition was sponsored by the gallery.
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