Donald Judd: A look at the essence of the sculpture

Donald Judd as a constant presence in the art scene

Donald Judd is one of the most important contemporary artists in the world. For most art experts, he is among the most remarkable artists that American culture has produced throughout its history. Judd, along with Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt, is considered a founder and leading figure of Minimalism , but he rejected being reduced to a single artistic style.

Judd had a particularly strong influence on American post-war art, especially with his generously sized outdoor installations and extraordinary designs in architecture and interior design , which can be admired, for example, in his self-created "art village" of Marfa in Texas.

Judd began his artistic career with expressionist painting and, particularly in his early years as a sculptor, also created many smaller sculptures and installations, as well as large objects made from a wide variety of materials such as concrete, plexiglass, and steel. The large objects are formed into precise geometric shapes that further emphasize the material-object units created by Judd.

Judd remains present in today's world, with numerous sculptures in public spaces, including in our local area, for example in Bottrop, Münster, Winterthur, Switzerland, and the "Stage Set" in Vienna's Stadtpark. In the USA, Judd's works can be seen in public spaces in Washington, New York, and Marfa, Texas.

according to the "World's Best Art" list . In the previous decade, he likely ranked even higher at times; his exhibition history shows a veritable "Donald Judd boom" between 2000 and 2010. In recent years, Judd's art has become somewhat less prominent; in 2016, he was "only" ranked 85th on the World's Best list, but the trend graph is already showing a slight upward movement again…

Judd's entire artistic career as a painter, sculptor, architect and designer only began in his third decade of life, after he had achieved a secure professional position as a trained philosopher and recognized art critic.

Donald Judd's philosophical path to art

Donald Clarence Judd was born on June 3, 1928, in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Missouri is located in the Midwestern United States, and Excelsior Springs is a small town with a current population of around 10,000, situated on the border with Kansas.

Excelsior Springs is located just under 50 km northeast of KCMO (Kansas City, Missouri) and thus just barely belongs to the Kansas City metropolitan area with currently around 2 million inhabitants and two Kansas Cities (in Missouri and in Kansas) as its center.

When Donald Judd was growing up, Excelsior Springs had just under 5,000 inhabitants. In all of Missouri (the state is almost exactly half the size of Germany), fewer people lived than live in Berlin today (which, with its nearly 900 km², is not even half a percent the size of Missouri).

Judd was born on his grandparents' farm and spent his early years in a quiet, rural setting. This was followed by moves to various other quiet rural locations in the USA, until, at the age of 18, he was "allowed" to switch from school to military service (war service in the Korean War) from 1946 to 1947.

In 1948, Judd began studying philosophy at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, but transferred to Columbia University in New York in 1949. There he continued his philosophy studies and also took art classes at the School of General Studies, College of Liberal Arts. In 1953, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy (cum laude).

The courses at Columbia's "Liberal Art College" had further intensified Judd's interest in art; after graduating with a degree in philosophy, he worked under Rudolf Wittkower and Meyer Schapiro (famous art historians who had to leave their home countries because of anti-Semitism) on a master's degree in art history .

During this time, he also attended evening classes at the legendary “Art Students League” New York , the most influential and well-known of these associations of art students for free learning and working.

The alumni list of the Art Students League of New York is teeming with artists (both teachers and students) who are now considered pioneers of modern art: Lucian Bernhard and Thomas Eakins, George Grosz and Franz Kline, Reginald Marsh, Robert Motherwell and John French Sloan taught here; Louise Bourgeois , Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein , Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock , Robert Rauschenberg , Man Ray , Mark Rothko and Cy Twombly studied here, and these are just a few.

From 1959 onwards, Judd no longer had to finance all these studies with any work on non-art-related topics, but worked as a freelance critic for three prestigious art magazines: Art News, Arts Magazine and Art International (until 1965).

From 1962 onwards, he also accepted various teaching positions : at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in New York, at Yale University in New Haven, at Oberlin College in Ohio, and at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. In 1965, he undertook an extensive artistic study trip to Sweden.

Donald Judd's art: "Maximum skill requires minimal frills."

From about the mid-1950s, Judd began working with wood as a material, in a progressive movement from figurative to increasingly abstract representations , from organically rounded forms to meticulous craftsmanship in consistently straight lines and angles. Until about 1961, wood remained the central theme of his artistic work; alongside figurative carving, he also experimented with woodblock printing.

Here is a selection of his “woodcuts” to view: www.juddfoundation.org/exhibitions/donald-judd-woodcuts (each can be enlarged by clicking on it).

artistic style moved even more steadily away from the illusion of representation in painting towards material-based sculpture. He became increasingly enthusiastic about constructions in which the essential nature of the material became the core of the work. These minimalist sculptures took on ever more monumental dimensions and, from 1973 onwards, were primarily designed for outdoor installation.

A typical Judd sculpture has stood on the banks of the Aasee, an artificially created reservoir in Münster, Westphalia (Aasee meadow below the Mühlenhof), Skulptur Projekte 1977

From the early wooden sculptures that could be admired at Judd's first exhibitions, Judd later produced entire series of "design sculptures" in metal and sometimes colored plexiglass.

On the former army site in Marfa, Judd set up his main work in two halls: 100 huge boxes made of polished aluminum, one breathtakingly beautiful “box” next to the other: “100 untitled works in mill aluminum” , 1982-1986.

Donald Judd's quiet artistic career

Judd had already begun practicing art (expressionist painting) in the late 1940s; the first solo exhibition of his expressionist paintings took place in 1957 at the Panoras Gallery in New York.

He was reluctant to publicly exhibit his earliest sculptural works, which were limited to minimalist statements. It was only in 1963 that he selected some works he considered worthy of presentation for the first time, to be shown at the Green Gallery in New York. “Untitled” , 1963, oil on wood with Plexiglas, is one of these exhibited artworks.

The success of the exhibition marked the beginning of a busy exhibition career, through which Donald Judd, who was already known and recognized as an art critic for European and young American art, soon also gained a reputation as an artist.

To date, Donald Judd's works have been featured in nearly 1,000 exhibitions , and his exhibition history offers interesting room for interpretation: approximately 140 solo exhibitions are contrasted with around 850 group exhibitions. At first glance, this might seem to indicate that Donald Judd is a natural team player who prefers to create and present art

The fact that he only had 140 solo exhibitions also suggests that Donald Judd was not among those artists who demanded public attention for themselves as much as for their art. His long hesitation before the first exhibition of his newly conceived art seems to indicate that Judd didn't even necessarily demand public attention for his art itself, but preferred simply to "make his art in peace."

Both of these statements are certainly not entirely wrong; Judd did indeed seize the opportunity, or rather, the first "spare cash," to purchase a house in New York in 1968. Not just any house, but a five-story historic building with a beautiful cast-iron facade dating from 1870, right in the heart of Manhattan and just a few meters from Broadway. And he paid less than $70,000 for it at the time (€61,000 and change; that wouldn't even buy you a matchbox on Broadway today).

Judd used the building as his New York home and studio, renovating it floor by floor throughout his life.

Over the years, the New York house served many times as an exhibition space for works that Judd had bought from other artists or commissioned from them; this alone shows that Donald Judd did not consider himself the artistic center of the world, but worked with other artists in mind.

Today the building houses the Judd Foundation, conceived by him in 1977 and established by his children in 1996 to preserve his work and make it accessible to the public.

The fact that Judd also enjoyed collaborating with other artists is evident in the development of his second primary residence: the once sleepy town of Marfa, a water station on the San Antonio Railway in southwest Texas, which Judd first visited in 1973. At that time, Judd initially rented part of "the block," which actually comprises an entire city block, a former military fort of 140 hectares with more than 30 barracks, former ammunition depots, and aircraft hangars.

Judd used his portion as a residence and studio, and in 1974 he purchased the entire "block." Over time, this was transformed into a complex of buildings enclosed by historic mud walls, featuring courtyards including cactus gardens, furniture designed by Judd, a swimming pool and private garden , two permanent studio halls, and a private library with more than 10,000 volumes.

Subsequently, more buildings were added: an architecture studio in a former bank, an architecture office in a two-story townhouse, and other historic buildings, some of considerable size, such as a former hotel and a former wholesale market. Judd planned a foundation to establish an art and artists' museum in Marfa—architecture and art in the middle of the desert, in a unique landscape surrounded by the Chinati Mountains.

Judd sought help from the Dia Art Foundation . Dia comes from the Greek word for "through" and represents the foundation's purpose: to support artistic projects that would not be possible without assistance. The Dia Art Foundation, for example, supported Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks project and helped Donald Judd establish his Chinati Foundation in 1987.

As part of the funding, the founders collected works from the supported artists; since 2003, the foundation has had its own museum, Dia:Beacon,

Its continued existence proves that support is worthwhile: Today, works by Bernd and Hilla Becher , Joseph Beuys , Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Katharina Fritsch, Ann Hamilton, Michael Heizer, Jenny Holzer, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Imi Knoebel, Sol LeWitt , Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman , Blinky Palermo , Gerhard Richter , Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra , Robert Smithson, Diana Thater, Rosemarie Trockel , Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol , Lawrence Weiner, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young can be seen there…

Donald Judd now had his museum complex, where, far from the art world and together with friends, he could present his own work and that of fellow artists in an exemplary manner.

And Marfa is no longer a sleepy backwater, but has become a vibrant and renowned artists' town Chinati Foundation Dan Flavin , Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg , David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley have been on display in Marfa; the artists-in-residence program offers artists from around the world the opportunity to develop and present their work in a generously sized and stimulating environment.

Donald Judd attracted a lot of artists to Marfa, and that wasn't all, he brought a dead place to life.

art that were so crucial to him as an optimal presentation environment for this art in the late 1980s , he took on the next project, this time in Europe: In Küssnacht am Rigi in the Swiss canton of Schwyz, he acquired a former inn built in 1943 and had it remodeled according to his own designs.

The Judd Eichholteren House was transformed in 1992/1993 by Swiss architects into a spacious building with largely open floor plans. The project preserved the building's inherent qualities while creating neutral spaces equally suitable for living, working, and exhibiting art.

Before Judd could transform the Swiss art space into a total work of art, he became seriously ill and died on February 12, 1994 in New York at the age of 65.

Marfa continued to thrive; other artists came to live and work permanently in Marfa, new galleries opened, the Lannan Foundation a writers-in-residence program , there is a Marfa theatre group, and the Crowley Foundation Theatre provides a 175-seat hall free of charge to nonprofit organizations for events.

International Woman's Foundation opened its “Building 98” , which has since offered an artist-in-residence program and houses the George Sugarman Sculpture Garden .

Elmgreen and Dragset established “Prada Marfa” in the desert, quite a distance from Marfa. The cult shop, somewhat secluded, features genuine Prada handbags and shoes on display: www.graymalin.com/ . The artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset remained in Marfa and installed the multifunctional art space “Ballroom Marfa,” which hosts art films, musical performances, and exhibitions and art installations.

Sonic Youth gave a free rock concert in the town, cycling pro Lance Armstrong rented a loft (when he was still a respected cycling pro), the Coen brothers filmed some scenes of the cult film “No Country for Old Men” in Marfa (James Dean’s last film “Giant” was filmed entirely in Marfa).

Today, Marfa has an airport and a radio station, a weekly newspaper, the "Marfa Magazine," a public library and the "Marfa Film Festival," a Montessori kindergarten, gourmet restaurants, and delicatessens. Marfa Elementary School educates primary school children, while Marfa Junior/Senior High School educates older students. The private Marfa International School awards scholarships based on need.

Marfa receives six times as many visitors each year as it has inhabitants. For art enthusiasts, the long journey is a kind of pilgrimage; the American writer Lewis Hyde dubbed Chinati the “Taj Mahal of America.”

Donald Judd is very present in today's art world

Donald Judd's work is exhibited more today than at the beginning of his career as an artist. The solo exhibition “Donald Judd – Muebles y grabados” at the Galería Elvira González in Madrid until June 2016, and group exhibitions featuring Donald Judd's work are taking place in seven locations around the world in spring 2016.

• “The Natural Order of Things” at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City (until May 8, 2016)
• “The Sonnabend Collection: Meio Século De Arte Europeia E Americana. Part 1” at the Museu Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporânea Porto (until May 8, 2016)
• “Dansaekhwa and Minimalism” at Blum & Poe New York City (until May 21, 2016)
• “Drawing Dialogues: Selections from the Sol LeWitt Collection” at the Drawing Center New York City (until June 2016)
• “Objects And Bodies At Rest And In Motion” at the Moderna Museet Stockholm (until June 2016)
• “Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Kenneth Noland: A Dialogue” at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City (until the end of June 2016)
• “Sculpture on the Move 1946–2016” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Basel (until September 2016)

Roughly the same number of exhibitions as Donald Judd curated in the entire first decade of his artistic career; more will follow, still in 2016 and beyond.

On the Judd Foundation , you can book a visit to Marfa or simply explore the building at 101 Spring Street. You can also view a number of online exhibitions.

• Dan Flavin, works in the context of his friendship with Donald Judd
• Donald Judd and Trisha Brown, among others, the collaborative works “Son of Gone Fishin” (1981) and “Newark (Niweweorce)” (1987)
• Casa Perez in Marfa: Open House
• 101 Spring Street, Documents of history and context
• David Novros: “Untitled” (1970), a fresco at 101 Spring Street
• Donald Judd: Woodcuts, 70 works from 1960 to 1993
• From Arroyo Grande to Ayala de Chinati: Land Conservation and Desert Structures
• The Public Life, documents from the Donald Judd archives about Judd's wide-ranging political, social and environmental activism
• From the Vault: Donald Judd's life and work in selected, partly previously unpublished documents from the "family vault" of the Donald Judd Archive

The Chinati Foundation features many pieces from the foundation's collection, by Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain and Carl Andre, Ingolfur Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov , Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch and John Wesley.

You will also learn all about visiting the Chinati Foundation, the programs for the public (readings, performances, exhibitions and special events), the Robert Irwin Project and the next “Chinati Weekend” in October 2016.

With new and special exhibitions, panel discussions, performances, the annual charity dinner, and a very special view of Judd's "100 works in mill aluminum" at sunset. The vast majority of the offerings can be visited free of charge. You can also become a member of the foundation or purchase limited editions, prints, and books in the store; high-resolution images of a wide range of artworks from the permanent collection are available for media use.

The English Tate Gallery also displays all of its Judd works on its website, optionally as a convenient slideshow.

A few Donald Judd legends

Donald Judd retreated to Marfa. Judd detested the cramped conditions, noise, and climate of New York (which in his time, lacking any environmental standards, was considerably more unpleasant than it is today).

He was also far ahead of his time in his assessment of the modern art world: While efforts to stylize a myth of a detached, closed world for art connoisseurs and artists were only just getting underway, Judd already made it clear that he despised the art world.

“only show business and cheap tricks,” and he proclaimed this publicly without any regard for others: “I believe that most of today’s art rejects any kind of absolute or general morality.” But also: “I suppose that a kind of morality can be seen in the striving to do one’s work well.”

His retreat to Marfa was not merely an escape from New York, but had a broader purpose: Judd wanted to create a place where “a portion of contemporary art exists as an example of how this art was intended in its context.” Just as the platinum-iridium meter guarantees the measuring tape, a rigorous standard for the art of this period in this part of the world must also be established somewhere.

That Judd felt called upon to set this standard testifies to a healthy confidence in the value of his work – which would subsequently be confirmed by the world's leading art historians.

Judd demanded that he think outside the box, and that he also expected those he worked with to do so. For example, there's an anecdote about how he secured doors with padlocks. When an employee asked for the combination, he pointed to the date of the Battle of Waterloo and suggested that the employee figure it out himself.

The incredulous outrage with which a journalist from a leading German news magazine recounted this episode in 2010 reveals to attentive readers that this journalist has still not arrived in the information age, even two decades after this incident…

Donald Judd's work is full of inspiration for the future

Donald Judd's life's work provides a pleasant template for subsequent artists: It is okay to concentrate on one's art, to simply do one's thing quietly and develop one's own art style without throwing oneself into the market.

Without necessarily turning every work of art into a high-profile event, without having to put your face in every newspaper and on every television channel, without constantly being at the center of the action. You can simply pursue your work, and those who are interested will find it, even if it's in the middle of the desert.

Donald Judd provides wonderful templates for all creative people, first and foremost with the idea of ​​discovering the materials our world offers and thoroughly engaging with a material before working with it. Then, very concretely, with many beautiful inspirations.

This perfectionist was rarely satisfied with conventional furniture in terms of function and/or design, so he designed his own. Beds and tables, shelves and chairs, simple yet perfectly functional, like Shaker furniture.

• A shelf can be constructed so simply yet so aesthetically pleasing: artofthemooc.org/
• Or something so simple yet quite extraordinary: www.artnet.com/
• This is what a simple yet functional seating arrangement can look like: reverent.org/
• Or something so straightforward, with potential for great comfort: www.port-magazine.com
• A simple desk that offers more space: www.die-neue-sammlung.de/
• This is how light-filled a room can be: static1.squarespace.com/
• Privacy in bed doesn't get much more relaxing than this: the189.com/

A portrait of Donald Judd states that he had negative experiences with the presentation of his works because visitors did not approach his art with the necessary respect or distance. For example, a Judd sculpture (a cuboid) is said to have hung near the entrance of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart for years, where visitors mistook it for a coat rack and left their hats and jackets on it.

The subject of the portrait arrived at this assessment almost two decades after Donald Judd's death. Given Judd's numerous designs for "usable art" and his statement: "Whatever the environment, it affects the artwork in one way or another; it may be inaccessible or not. There is inaccessibility in my art, but it must always have a certain degree of everydayness," it is doubtful that this casual interaction with the presented artwork was an adverse experience for the artist.

Engaging with Donald Judd's work can offer many people a sense of validation and relief, especially in today 's world. Judd immersed himself in philosophy and art history, developing a focus on the essentials from his acquired knowledge. This perspective on things and the world is currently experiencing a major resurgence, particularly among those who are tired of furnishing their homes according to corporate sales guidelines.

For all those who are tired of filling their rooms with imported, cheap furniture that falls apart after the first move. For all those who are generally fed up with being inundated with short-lived consumer goods produced under inhumane conditions.

Minimalism , with its focus on the essence of things, on meaningful living and action, offers many answers to the questions that life in an increasingly complex world poses. Donald Judd embarked on this path of concentration and self-reflection very early on, in a time that, in retrospect, only seems less chaotic to today's contemporaries than the present. In truth, the world has always been equally crazy, unjust, and incomprehensible, and to almost the same degree.

In reality, we actually have a great advantage today: Unlike people in Donald Judd's generation, each of us can learn about the lives of people like Donald Judd with just a few clicks and draw our own conclusions for our own lives from what we learn…

If enough Berliners, Cologne residents, Frankfurt residents, Dortmund residents, Essen residents, and Leipzig residents yearning for country life would learn about Donald Judd's life, Gosen-Neu Zittau and Schollene, Beggerow and Kusel, Herne, Burgkirchen an der Alz, Sorge, Elend, and Freudenburg would have long since had new and lasting reasons to rejoice... in Marfa, revitalized by Donald Judd, real estate prices are constantly rising, in stark contrast to the rest of the USA.

Thankfully, Donald Judd has made enough of his art available to ordinary people, which can be viewed (almost) for free, since the prices of his art are now in the tens of millions…

Art by Judd can be found in Germany at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art in Berlin, the art collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, the Weserburg Museum for Modern Art in Bremen, the Kolumba in Cologne, the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, the K20 in Düsseldorf, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt/Main, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, the Schauwerk in Sindelfingen, the Kunsthalle Weishaupt in Ulm, the Neues Museum in Weimar and the Museum Wiesbaden.