John McCracken (artist)

The planks, from 1966 A McCracken plank is a narrow board of a single glossy color, leaning at an angle against the wall. It touches the floor like a sculpture and the wall like a painting, and McCracken said he saw it as existing between two worlds. Notice where you place it in your head, then notice that it refuses to settle. The finish matters as much as the form: plywood coated with fiberglass and layers of polyester resin, polished until it reflects the room, in colors as unexpected as bubble-gum pink and lemon yellow. It is the West Coast answer to the austere New York work on this list. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art currently shows its Red Plank of 1966; the Art Institute of Chicago's Red Plank of 1969 is off view.