New York
The exquisite polish of paint on John McCracken’s simple slabs and other minimal sculptures has the ability to transform three-dimensional art into surfaces that relate as much to painting as they do to objects in this world. This is not to deny the sculptural essence of his art, but to highlight the fact that the surfaces are as interesting as the forms. This very fine mini-retrospective made the perfect finish of McCracken’s efforts abundantly clear. Perhaps intensified by their glossy surfaces, even the slabs—flat planks of wood leaning against the walls—transcended their extreme simplicity. Never having seen the objects in a solo show, I was somewhat skeptical about work that appeared so reductively simple in art magazine reproductions. Greater familiarity, how- ever, brought about a real respect for the actual sculptures, particularly their ability to approximate isolated sentinels. One hesitates to extract more information from these works than they seem willing to give, but the great care used in preparing them tends to emphasize the meaningfulness of each discrete piece.…see the entire review in the print version of April’s Sculpture magazine.
