Donald Judd: Artworks: 1970–1994

David Zwirner is pleased to announce Artworks: 1970–1994, a survey exhibition devoted to Donald Judd that will be on view across all three of the gallery’s West 19th Street locations in New York. Presented concurrently with The Museum of Modern Art’s full-scale retrospective, this exhibition will focus on a selection of works within Judd’s oeuvre drawn from both public and private collections.

With the intention of creating straightforward work without recourse to grand philosophical statements, Judd eschewed the classical ideals of representational sculpture to create a rigorous visual vocabulary that defines objects as its primary mode of articulation. The unaffected, direct quality of his work demonstrates Judd’s strong interest in color, form, material, and space, thus establishing him as one of the most significant American artists of the postwar period.

Image: Donald Judd, Untitled, 1982 (detail)

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Location

519, 525 & 533 West 19th Street New York

Dates

November 5—December 12, 2020

Curators

Flavin Judd

Artist

Donald Judd

Press Release

Artworks: 1970–1994

“I think that the work implies beyond itself that it’s a relatively chaotic and random world; it just happens to be that I want to order my own particular part of it.”

—Donald Judd, in an interview with Michael Archer for Audio Arts, March 1986

Donald Judd, untitled, 1986

Untitled, 1986 is one of Judd's largest and most complex installations. Comprising thirty wall-mounted plywood boxes with varying colors of acrylic sheet, it is organized according to a complex internal logic. As Marianne Stockebrand notes, “The dividers can predominate in the left, center or right half of the shapes, as if a motif were leaping backwards and forwards over a screen…. This results in a sense of movement and it is as though the boxes will not allow viewers to remain rooted to the spot but compel them to walk along beside them, gazing forwards and backwards to compare the view that changes every moment.’’

Art should be new.
Art should be made with the widest knowledge possible.
Art should concern what you really know.
Art should resist all received information aesthetic or
otherwise.
Visual art should be visual.
There should be no hierarchy: no frame, no pedestal.
There should be no movement; why should a static object
imitate movement?
There should be no division of “form” and “content,” and so
no “pure form.”....

—Donald Judd, “Notes”, 13 December 1986

Donald Judd, untitled, 1986 (detail)

Donald Judd, untitled, 1986

“Judd’s work belongs to a distinct tradition of modern sculpture, one in which the boundaries of the medium are intentionally pushed to the limits of understanding.”

—Ann Temkin, “Introduction: The Originality of Donald Judd”, Judd, 2020

Donald Judd, untitled, 1970

The earliest work in this exhibition, untitled, 1970 was devised for Judd’s 1970 solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. Eighteen hot-dipped galvanized iron panels were installed eight inches in front of three walls of Castelli’s front gallery and set directly onto the floor, uniquely engaging the space “sort of like a dado or something in architecture,” the artist later told critic Phyllis Tuchman. Although the initial installation was site responsive, Judd conceived of it as an open system, specifying that the number of panels and width of the panels could be made flexible for future installations so that it could fit into a range of spaces.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1989

Donald Judd, untitled, 1979 (detail)

Donald Judd, untitled, 1979

The floor work untitled, 1979—one of Judd's earliest efforts in Cor-ten steel—comprises six modular units positioned closely together so as to give the viewer the impression of a single, cohesive whole.

“I’m very meticulous about the logic of my pieces. But you should only consider logic up to a certain point, because, after all, all the interesting stuff is something else.”

—Donald Judd, in an interview with Catherine Millet for Artpress, April, 1987

Installation view, Donald Judd Artworks: 1970–1994, David Zwirner, New York, 2020

“Color, like material, is what art is made from. It alone is not art.... In the sheet aluminum works I wanted to use more and diverse bright colors than before.”

—Donald, Judd, “Some Aspects of Color in General and Red and Black in Particular”, 1993

Donald Judd, untitled, 1984

“The boxes, the progressions, and so forth became their own proof of the initial premise of the strength of this innovative form. These Judds created ‘Judd’ as much as Judd created them.”

—Ann Temkin, “Introduction: The Originality of Donald Judd”, 2020

Donald Judd, untitled, 1988

Donald Judd, untitled, 1982

Donald Judd, untitled, 1994

In 1988, with the intention of localizing his production in Marfa, Texas, where he had been living since 1973, Judd opened a workshop in a disused ice factory. By the following year he was able to produce works in Cor-ten steel there. Although he had previously executed a handful of works in this material, Judd began to translate a number of his key free-standing and wall-mounted forms into Cor-ten.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1990

Donald Judd, untitled, 1990 (detail)

“The pieces are meant to have a certain amount of chance…. I like it if it’s less controlled…. And this relationship of chance or not chance or how much ordering or not and all that is a view of the world that ordinarily the best art has to have, one way or another.”

—Donald Judd, in an interview with Michael Archer for Audio Arts, March 1986

“A full understanding of Judd’s contribution to the history of modern art continues to unfold. If Judd did not choose predecessors in sculpture to guide him in what he wanted to do, he has proven in various ways just such a predecessor to any number of artists, regardless of apparent relation between his work and theirs.”

—Ann Temkin, “Introduction: The Originality of Donald Judd”, 2020

Installation view, Donald Judd Artworks: 1970–1994, David Zwirner, New York, 2020

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Installation view of the exhibition, Donald Judd: Artworks: 1970-1994, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2020.

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1988

Clear anodized aluminum and green acrylic sheets

6 units, each: 19 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 19 3/4 inches
50 x 100 x 50 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1986

Douglas fir plywood and acrylic sheets
63 units, 30 units fabricated, 1986–1988

Each unit: 100 x 100 x 50 cm
39 5/16 x 39 5/16 x 19 5/8 inches

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1990

Clear and colored anodized aluminum

11 3/4 x 84 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches
29.8 x 215.3 x 28.6 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1990

Cadmium red light acrylic on plywood

19 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 45 inches
49.5 x 77.5 x 114.3 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1986

Chartreuse acrylic on plywood with square aluminum tube

16 1/2 x 69 x 5 inches
41.9 x 175.3 x 12.7 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1984

Douglas fir plywood

2 units, each: 39 x 39 x 13 1/8 inches
99.1 x 99.1 x 33.3 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1984

Aluminum and red acrylic sheet

10 x 70 x 10 inches
25.4 x 177.8 x 25.4 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1992

Two (2) recesses in a wall, with galvanized iron in the back of the recesses

Each recess: 19 5/8 x 29 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches
50 x 75 x 25 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1987

Painted aluminum

2 units, each: 11 7/8 x 141 3/4 x 11 7/8 inches
30 x 360 x 30 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1982

Brushed aluminum and yellow over blue acrylic sheets

4 units, each 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 x 9 7/8 inches
100 x 100 x 25 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1979

Cor-ten steel

6 units, each 48 x 119 x 14 inches
121.9 x 302.3 x 35.6 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1973

Copper

10 x 72 x 26 inches
25.4 x 182.9 x 66 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled,

1984

Mill aluminum

10 x 60 x 10 inches
25.4 x 152.4 x 25.4 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1989

Painted aluminum

11 3/4 x 118 1/8 x 11 3/4 inches
30 x 300 x 30 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1982

Aluminum and purple acrylic sheets

3 units, each: 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 x 14 5/8 inches
100 x 100 x 37 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1994

Cor-ten steel and black acrylic sheets

6 units, each: 9 7/8 x 39 3/8 x 9 7/8 inches
25 x 100 x 25 cm

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1973

Blue anodized aluminum

Six units
1 unit: 7 7/8 x 15 11/16 x 13 3/4 inches (20 x 40 x 35 cm)
1 unit: 7 7/8 x 10 3/8 x 13 3/4 inches (20 x 26.4 x 35 cm)
1 unit: 7 7/8 x 9 3/8 x 13 3/4 inches (20 x 24 x 35 cm)
3 units, each 7 7/8 x 7 7/8 x 13 3/4 inches (20 x 20 x 35 cm)

Donald Judd

Untitled, 1970

Galvanized iron

Length and placement variable

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