From tonight's online New York Times —
John McCracken, Sculptor of Geometric Forms, Dies at 76
McCracken died in Manhattan on Friday, April 8.
From Christopher Knight in tonight's online LA Times —
… the works embody perceptual and philosophical conundrums. The colored planks stand on the floor like sculptures….
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.
Two photos of McCracken's 1967 Black Plank seem relevant—
November 28, 2010 (Click to enlarge) —
December 28, 2010 (Click to enlarge) —
Material that an artist might view as related, if only synchronistically—
Two posts in this journal on the dates the photos were taken—
The Embedding on November 28 and Dry Bones on December 28.
The photos are of an exhibition titled "There is nothing to see here" at the
National Gallery of Art, October 30, 2010-April 24, 2011 —
For related nihilism from the National Gallery, see "Pictures of Nothing" in this journal.
Some less nihilistic illustrations—
A photo by one of the artists whose work is displayed above beside McCracken's—
"Accentuate the Positive."
— Clint Eastwood