“The number one , then, has become Husserl’s touchstone
for discriminating between psychological processes and
logical laws. It is his reality detector. What is
psychological (or empirical) comes on in discrete
individual instances– ones– and you can examine their
edges. What is logical (or ideal) comes on as a
seamless oceanic unity without temporal edges….”
— Marianne Sawicki, “Edmund Husserl (1859—1938),”
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
See also Roman Numeral in this journal.
In the landscape of minimalism, John McCracken cuts a unique figure. He is often grouped with the “light and space” artists who formed the West Coast branch of the movement. Indeed, he shares interests in vivid color, new materials, and polished surfaces with fellow Californians enamored of the Kustom Kar culture. On the other hand, his signature works, the “planks” that he invented in 1966 and still makes today, have the tough simplicity and aggressive presence of New York minimalism….
“They kind of screw up a space because they lean,” McCracken has said of the planks. Their tilting, reflective surfaces activate the room, leaving the viewer uncertain of traditional boundaries. He notes that the planks bridge sculpture (identified with the floor) and painting (identified with the wall)….
His ultimate goal, as with all mystics, is unity— not just of painting and sculpture, but of substance and illusion, of matter and spirit, of art and life. Such ideas recall the utopian aspirations of early modernists like Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky.
Related Art —
Unity
—Roman numeral I
as well as capital I
For a related figure, see a film review by A. O. Scott at The New York Times (September 21, 2010)—
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” begins with an unseen narrator— , sounding a lot like — paraphrasing . You may remember the quotation from high school English, about how life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The observation is attributed to the playwright himself (“Shakespeare once said”), rather than to Macbeth, whose grim experience led him to such nihilism, but never mind. In context, it amounts to a perfectly superfluous statement of the obvious.
If life signifies nothing, perhaps the tall dark figure above signifies something . Discuss.
Related Art Criticism —
For more on light and space, see this journal on the date of McCracken’s death—
Note planks.
Wikipedia—
Dos Equis is a lager that was originally brewed by the German-born Mexican brewer Wilhelm Hasse in 1897. The brand was named “Siglo XX” (“20th century”) to commemorate the arrival of the new century, and the bottles were marked with the Roman numerals “XX”, or “Dos Equis” (two Xs).
A rival for the Dos Equis “most interesting” title—
— ams.org/journals/bull/1928-34-05/….
See also Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate… “It happened in Monterrey, a long time ago….”
Actually, according to some sources, the Dos Equis brand began in or near Veracruz.
“On April 22, 1519, Hernan Cortez disembarked on Chalchihuecan beach, where he decided to found a village and form the first colonial settlement in Mexico. That day was Good Friday, the day of Holy Week known as the day of La Vera Cruz (True Cross)— hence he chose the name of La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz.” — Ad copy
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