John McCracken | "Song" at David Zwirner

John McCracken “Song”, 2008 [MCCJO0303] 

polyester resin, fiberglass and plywood 

overall dimensions: 96 x 124 x 13 ½ in. / each: 96 x 4 ½ x 3 in. 

at David Zwirner Gallery, 525 West 19th St. NYC

The tonal array of resinous reds that comprise the slender planks in John McCracken’s “Song” – sangria, “true” red, vamp, scarlet, Venetian red, carnelian, mulberry, and maroon [left to right] – evokes a practically uninhibited, childlike play with Pantone chips: a revelry that further expounds itself in the precarious lean of the plywood forms against the stark exhibition walls. The eight neighboring staves’ slight fluctuation thwarts any possible tedium and is just perceptible enough to supplicate said inner-child to test the waters and prod the upended boards just so as to properly render (an admittedly fulfilling) domino effect. 

The cantilevered shadows that emanate intrinsically across the interior Zwirner confines (owing to the gallery’s treasured skylight) render a remarkably surfboard-like silhouette that fittingly expounds on McCracken’s mythic Californian heritage and further accentuates the fiberglass-atop-plywood technique’s indelible luster. His fastidious workmanship – not unlike the handiwork one painstakingly applies to create a surfboard’s distinctly glossy patina – reveals itself most readily in the veiny grain of the tanned maroon panel [far right]: a beam that truly typifies a beach culture on account of the (indubitably art sceney) crane fly fittingly at roost atop the textured maroon “longboard”. 

The exhibition room’s inorganic spotlights glaringly reflect upon each rectangular statuette in such a manner so as to recall the fabled headlights one encounters at an unmistakably SoCal, Googie-tinged IN-N-OUT Burger in the witching (no doubt ravenous) hour. McCracken profoundly explores this seemingly superficial California car culture by means of his quintessential T-Birdesque sheen; one that goads onlookers into a rumination of sorts: wherein a spectator observes their own mien contemplating their idiosyncratic countenance and ergo deciphers their singular message in McCracken’s allegorical minimalism.

Comments

[gatekeeper]

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[popartpistol]

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[irene]

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[kat]

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[bluejayintokyo]

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- Tokyo, Japan