CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/17/2015

John McCracken: Works from 1963-2011

"Bright" (2006) is by John McCracken, a featured artist at the David Zwirner booth at Frieze New York this week and one of the artists represented in our Frieze bookstore. In the book, an absolute essential for any serious contemporary art library, Anne Reeve asks McCracken about his relationship to the term "Minimalism." He responds, "It’s a term I thought was kind of appropriate. I don’t like some of the other ones, like 'Finish Fetish.' But 'Minimalism' seems to me to be kind of appropriate and okay to use, and it communicates usually what you’re trying to say or talk about… That less is cool or something like that. The reason I don’t like 'Finish Fetish' is that it kind of limits everything to just a finish and it makes it seem kind of kooky also to call it a fetish. But 'Minimalism' seems to attempt to reduce things as far as they can go, or at least that’s how it is for me." When Reeve asks, "What about beauty—is it important to you that the works be beautiful?" McCracken answers, "Oh yeah, yeah, I like beautiful things."