Richard Jackson

Richard Jackson’s automated contraptions quite literally put another spin on painting. La-Z-Boy, 2004, is a cubelike structure that houses a chintz-covered recliner slathered with garish acrylic paint and mounted on a hydraulic lift. (Jackson had raised the chair up to the ceiling and twirled it around, leaving a circular smear.) For Vespa, 2004, he rode a scooter around in circles on a gigantic canvas splotched with puddles of paint, creating a gleeful life-size version of ’60s spin art. Meticulously constructed and deconstructed, Jackson’s irreverent work has always been less about durable commercial objects than about the conceptual and mechanical efforts entailed in pushing painting out of its frame for good. Very cathartic.