Donald Judd

Ha sido unos de los artista minimalistas, cuyo trabajo, desarrollando unos presupuestos teóricos que, apenas variaron desde los años 60, ha merecido un interés particular com referente en las últimas décadas, ya sea como modelo de la evolucion material de la idea de proyecto como la idea de una vida artística.








Rainer (left) and Flavin Judd have worked to preserve their father's legacy.




"Who?" I asked myself. Never heard of this dude, but I bet I can tell the difference between furniture made by a "famous minimalist sculptor" and Walmart. Ready?



Okay, so we're not going to be buying a Judd original anytime soon... but what about making one inspired-by? We think it could be accomplished with simple woodworking tools and know-how. The beds are made of pine 2x lumber and create a freestanding sleeping niche. The design is simple and definitely inspiring to us. The double-sided version you see above was designed by Judd for his children and is held in The Arena at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

(Una maldad, por favor que nadie se entere. A los niños los acostaba en esas camas "nichos" y viendo la primera foto, salieron un "poco raritos", no?)

No hay como crecer en el monte y criarte con las cabras. Te sale un padre artista y la "jodiste"








b. 1928, Excelsior Springs, Mo.; d. 1994, New York City

Donald Judd was born June 3, 1928, in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. He registered at the Art Students League, New York, in 1948 but transferred a few months later to the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1949, he moved back to New York to study philosophy at Columbia University while he took art classes at the Art Students League.

The Panoramas Gallery organized his first solo exhibition in 1957. The same year, Judd took art-history classes at Columbia University. He began to write articles for Art News in 1959 and the next year became a contributing editor for Arts Magazine until 1965, when he wrote reviews for Art International. In the early 1960s, he switched from painting to sculpture and started to develop an interest in architecture. Judd challenged the artistic convention of originality by using industrial processes and materials—such as steel, concrete, and plywood—to create large, hollow Minimalist sculptures, mostly in the form of boxes, which he arranged in repeated simple geometric forms.

His second solo show was held at the Green Gallery, New York, in 1963. From 1962 to 1964, he worked as an instructor at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, organized the first of a long series of individual exhibitions in 1966. This year, Judd was also hired as a visiting artist at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, and the following year he taught sculpture at Yale University, New Haven. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, organized the first retrospective of his work in 1968. During this decade, the artist received many fellowships, among them a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1968.

In 1971, he participated in the Guggenheim International Award exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, along with other Minimalist and Conceptual artists. Judd moved to Marfa, Texas, in 1972. He participated in his first Venice Biennale in 1980, and in Documenta, Kassel, in 1982. In 1984, he started designing furniture for the purpose of manufacturing. During the first half of the 1980s, Judd drew the plans for the Chinati Foundation, Marfa; the renovated compound of buildings opened in 1986 as a showcase for his sculptures, as well as for the work of other contemporary artists.

In 1987, Judd was honored by a large exhibition at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; this show traveled to D�sseldorf, Paris, Barcelona, and Turin. The Whitney Museum of American Art organized a traveling retrospective of his work in 1988. In 1992, he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, and received a prize from the Stankowski Foundation, Stuttgart, increasing the list of his numerous awards. During his lifetime, Judd published a large body of theoretical writings, in which he rigorously promoted the cause of Minimalist Art; these essays were consolidated in two volumes published in 1975 and 1987. The artist died February 12, 1994, in New York.

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In the late 50's through the mid-60's Donald Judd supported himself reviewing exhibits for Arts Magazine and Art International, and continued writing for these and other magazines into the 70's. All of his writings are collected in Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975, The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, originally published in 1975; the edition I have is 2005. In those days a handful of reviewers covered the NY scene, covering it like a beat, and would write a dozen or more reviews each month. For example, in Arts in November 1960 wrote fourteen reviews-- six of those were in the 100-150 word range, five were in the 50-75 word range, and three were long single-sentence reviews.

Judd wrote in an Introduction in 1974 (italics mine):

"The job with Arts provided most of my money until the last year (1965). I wrote criticism as a mercenary and would never have written it otherwise. Since there were no set hours and since I could work at home it was a good part-time job. It took three or four days to see the shows, and perhaps a week or so off and on to write the reviews, which I always put off until the deadline. I can't type. Sigrid Byers, another and later assistant editor, sometimes helped with that. I don't remember the pay and the different reviewing schemes too well. I think I was paid 180 dollars a month for quite a while. The rent on my loft was 100 dollars. The few articles (that he wrote besides reviews) were a great help, especially in the summer (when there were fewer shows to review). In the letter hiring me (Hilton) Kramer gives the rate at the time: "For a review of 300 words the rate is six dollars; for 150 words, four dollars; for a one-sentence review, three dollars." The magazine was always poor; I felt that Kramer and (James) Mellow paid as well as they could. Obviously art critics should be paid much more. That's one of the things seriously wrong with the activity.

According to an editorial of Kramer's in September 1961 the reviews were to become selective. A list for September 1962 that I still have gives 48 shows assigned and seen. Sixteen were reviewed. Forty-eight seems high and may be because (Sydney) Tillim was not reviewing shows that month. Fifteen reviews a month seems to be the average. Evidently before September 1961 all shows were seen and reviewed. The 1962 list indicates that we still saw everything but chose the better ones to write about. I believe that later we didn't see everything.

When I started browsing through The Complete Writings I was struck by the quantity of reviews, and I was especially struck by the briefest reviews where Judd would describe some image, or color scheme, or textures used, and then make a decisive final pronouncement about what was good or bad about the work. He said if he liked something, didn't equivocate if he didn't, and he always had reasons why. Increasingly I found him to be a good and fair writer, concise and clear. He might come across as harsh because he actually makes up his mind and says so. One may not like his opinions, but if you read his writing you begin to know where he is coming from.

The last two chapters of Jed Perls' New Art City convincingly, for me, pairs the unlikely duo of Judd and Fairfield Porter. Both were artists who also wrote about art. They were independently minded, perhaps a little difficult, and looked for art that wasn't more of the same, that had a reason to be. While they might appear to be in opposite corners of the room they each held informed standards of quality in art and expressed surprising insights.

The last ten days I have posted some of Judd's shorter reviews; they are all gathered on a single page. Typically, these shorter reviews are also negative ones, as better art would justify a longer review, but they are quite lucid, saying much in a few words. I thought it would be interesting to pull a few of these out to see what kinds of things Judd would identify as general failings. I think what I gather most from the following excerpts is Judd asking, "What's the point, why bother?"

COMENTARIO
Check out my blog - www.nyccnc.com - i have made a few Judd replicas!