In the early 1960s Donald Judd abandoned painting, having recognized that “actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.” His move into three dimensions was coincident with a growing acknowledgment among other artists of his generation of the physical environment as an integral aspect of an artwork. Minimalist sculpture broke with illusionistic conventions by translating compositional concerns into three dimensions, rendering the work a product of the exchange between the object, the viewer, and the environment.

In his 1965 treatise “Specific Objects,” Judd championed recent work that was neither painting nor sculpture by a diverse range of artists such as Lee Bontecou, Mark di Suvero, Claes Oldenburg, and Frank Stella. His endorsement of “the thing as a whole” rather than a composition of parts stemmed from what he saw as the strength and clarity asserted by singular forms, the unitary character of which resulted from the conflation of color, image, shape, and surface. Judd’s earliest freestanding sculptures were singular, boxlike forms constructed of wood or metal. The simple shape of Untitled (1968), with its slightly recessed upper surface, is readily intelligible as a whole and thus avoids the compositional effects that for Judd diluted a work’s power. As the artist’s exploration of three-dimensional space became more complex, his aversion to such effects was manifested in a number of strategies designed to subordinate a work’s individual components to the whole.

Like the rectangular shape with which he began, Judd’s rows and progressions are legible systems that reoccur in his oeuvre. In its repetition of serial forms and spaces, the vertical stack of Untitled (1969) literally incorporates space as one of its materials along with highly polished copper, creating a play between positive and negative that coheres as a totality. Similarly, in Untitled (1970), the application of a dual Fibonacci progression (a mathematically based sequence in which each number is the sum of the two previous two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and so on) imparts an internal logic to both solid and void alike, the anodized color of the boxes throwing the mathematical system into greater relief. While spatial concerns were foremost for Judd, color and materials always remained central to his conception of art. A sustained and rigorous investigation of space and form, his work is tempered by a rich palette of industrial materials, such as stainless steel, aluminum, and translucent Plexiglas, the varied surfaces and finishes of which lend a sumptuous air to an otherwise austere undertaking.

J. Fiona Ragheb

Purchased from Leo Castelli, New York, by Panza in 1972; gifted to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1991.

Solo
Janie C. Lee Gallery, Dallas, Don Judd, September 1970.

Group
[Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Arte minimal de la Colección Panza, March 24–December 31, 1988. Catalogue (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, Centro Nacional de Exposiciones, 1988) with essays by Germano Celant and Fernando Huici; p. 60.]

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Tradition of the New: Postwar Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, May 20–September 11, 1994; gallery with Judd works, “In Memory of Donald Judd,” May 12–August 16, 1994.

The Richard and Marieluise Black Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Works from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Panza Collection, April 2–August 27, 1995.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Pertzepzio Aldakorrak: Guggenheim Museoaren Panza Bilduma; Percepciones en Transformación: La Colección Panza del Museo Guggenheim, October 9, 2000–January 28, 2001.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Global Guggenheim: Selections from the Extended Collection, February 8–April 22, 2001.

Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, sculture minimal (exh. cat., Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, 1980). Rome: De Luca, 1979. Essays by Giuseppe Panza di Biumo and Ida Panicelli; pp. 41, 43 (illus.).

Celant, Germano. Das Bild einer Geschichte 1956/1976, p. 106 (illus.; published as Brown enamel on hot-rolled steel).

Coplans, John. “An Interview with Don Judd.” Artforum (New York) 9, no. 10 (June 1971), pp. 49 (illus.), 50.

Donald Judd (exh. cat.). Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1975. In English and French. Includes essay by Roberta Smith and “Donald Judd: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Objects, and Wood-Blocks, 1960–1974” by Dudley Del Balso, Roberta Smith, and Brydon Smith; p. 164 (cat. no. 122).

Donald Judd: Early Fabricated Work. New York: Pace Wildenstein, 1998. Catalogue with essay by Rosalind Krauss and texts by Robert Smithson; p. 8.

Knight, Christopher. Art of the Sixties and Seventies, pp. 163 (illus.), 263. Revised and expanded English edition: pp. 203 (illus.), 254 (illus. shows the work in Varese), 304. French edition: pp. 163 (illus.), 263. Italian edition: pp. 163 (illus.), 263. Revised and expanded Italian edition: pp. 203 (illus.), 254 (illus. shows the work in Varese), 304.

Spector, Nancy, ed. Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1992, 2d ed. 2001. pp. 250, 251 (illus.).