Donald Judd: A look at the essence of the sculpture

Donald Judd as a lasting constant in the art scene

Donald Judd is one of the most important contemporary artists in our world. For most art experts, it is one of the most remarkable artists that the American culture has produced in the course of its history. Together with Robert Morris and Sol Lewitt, Judd is considered the founder and main representative of minimalism , but refused to be reduced to a certain art style.

Judd particularly shaped the art of the American post -war period. Especially with generously dimensioned outdoor installations and extraordinary designs in the field of architecture and interior design . B. in his self-created "art village" Marfa in Texas.

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

Judd remains present in the world today, with numerous sculptures in public spaces, including those in nearby Bottrop, Münster, Winterthur, Switzerland, and the "Stage Set" in Vienna's Stadtpark. In the USA, Judd's works can be viewed in public spaces in places like Washington, New York, and Marfa, Texas.

In the “world's best list of art”, Donald Judd was still among the 50 most famous artists in the world in 2010/2011. In the decade before that, he probably was much higher in the meantime in the meantime, his exhibition history shows a true "Donald Judd boom" in the decade from 2000 to 2010. In recent years it has become a little quieter for Judd art, in 2016 it is "only" in 85th on the world's best list, but the trend graphic shows slightly upwards ...

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 Midwest of the USA, Excelsior Springs is a small town with around 10,000 inhabitants on the border with Kansas.

Excelsior Springs is located just 50 km northeast of KCMO (Kansas City, Missouri) and is just part of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which currently has around 2 million inhabitants and two Kansas Citys (in Missouri and Kansas) as its center.

When Donald Judd was growing up, Excelsior Springs had a population of just under 5,000. In all of Missouri (the state is almost exactly half the size of Germany), fewer people lived than in Berlin today (which, at just under 900 km², is less than half a percent the size of Missouri).

Judd was born on his grandparents' farm and spent his early years in a quiet, rural setting. He then moved to various other quiet rural towns in the USA until, at just 18, he was "allowed" to transfer from school to military service (duty 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 studies in philosophy and also took art courses at the School of General Studies, a liberal arts college. In 1953, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy (cum laude).

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

In addition, he also attended the evening courses of the legendary "Art Students League" New York , the most influential and best known of these connections from art students for free learning and working.

In the graduate list of Art Students League of New York, it is teeming with artists (among the teachers and the students), who are now seen as pioneers of modern art: Lucian Bernhard and Thomas Eakins, George Grosz and Franz Kline, Reginald Marsh and John French Sloan taught; Louise Bourgeois , Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein , Georgia O'keeffe, Jackson Pollock , Robert Rauschenberg , Man Ray , Mark Rothko and Cy Twombly learned here, and these were only extracts.

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

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

The art of Donald Judd: “Maximum skill requires minimal frills.”

From around the mid-1950s, Judd began working with wood as a material, moving progressively from figurative to increasingly abstract depictions, from organically rounded forms to meticulous craftsmanship in consistently straight lines and angles. Until around 1961, wood remained the foundation of his artistic work; in addition to figurative work, he also experimented with woodblock printing.

Here you can visit a number of his "Woodcuts" : www.juddfoundation.org/exhibitions/donald-judd-woodcuts (to enlarge each by clicking).

After this phase, his artistic style shifted even more steadily away from the illusion of representation in painting toward material-based sculpture. He became increasingly enthusiastic about constructions in which the essence of the material became the core of the work. These minimalist sculptures took on increasingly monumental dimensions and, from 1973 onward, were primarily designed for outdoor installation.

A typical Judd sculpture has stood on the shore of Lake Aasee, an artificial reservoir in Münster, Westphalia (Aaseewiese below the Mühlenhof), Skulptur.Projekte 1977

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

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

Donald Judd's quiet artist career

Judd had already started in the late 1940s with the practical art exercise (expressionist painting), the first solo exhibition of his expressionist pictures took place in 1957 in the New York Panoras Gallery.

He was reluctant to publicly exhibit his first sculptural works, which were limited to minimal statements, for a long time. In 1963, he first selected a few works he considered worthy of presentation to exhibit at the Green Gallery in New York. "Untitled," 1963, oil on wood with Plexiglas, is one of these exhibited works.

The success of the exhibition marked the beginning of a lively exhibition activity through which Donald Judd, who was already well-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 shown in almost 1,000 exhibitions , with his exhibition history offering interesting scope for interpretation: around 140 solo exhibitions are contrasted with approximately 850 group exhibitions. At first glance, this might be evidence that Donald Judd is a born teamworker who prefers to create and present art

"Only" 140 solo exhibitions also suggest that Donald Judd was not one of those artists who demanded public attention equally for themselves and for their art. The long hesitation before the first exhibition of his newly conceived art seems more likely to indicate that Judd didn't even necessarily demand public attention for his art, preferring instead to simply "make his art in peace."

Both are certainly not entirely wrong, Judd took the opportunity to buy a house in New York in 1968 in 1968. Not just any house, but a five-story historic building with a beautiful cast iron facade from 1870, in the middle of Manhattan and a few meters from Broadway. For which he did not even pay $ 70,000 at the time (61,000 euros and a few crushed, but there would be no 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 frequently served as an exhibition space for works that Judd had purchased from or commissioned from other artists; this alone demonstrates that Donald Judd did not consider himself the artistic center of the world, but rather worked with other artists in mind.

Today the building houses the Judd Foundation, designed by him in 1977 and founded in 1996 by his children to maintain his work and make it open to the public.

The fact that Judd also enjoyed working with other artists is evident in the development of his second primary place of 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 block (of houses), a former military fort of 140 hectares with more than 30 barracks from 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, it was expanded into a complex of buildings surrounded by historic adobe walls, featuring courtyards, cactus gardens, Judd-designed furnishings, 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 town house, other historic buildings in sometimes considerable sizes, e.g. B. a former hotel and a former wholesale market. Judd planned a foundation to build an art and artist 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 "through" and represents the foundation's purpose—to promote artistic projects that would not be possible without support. 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 by the funded artists, since 2003 the foundation has had its own museum in Beacon DIA: Beacon

Its holdings prove that support is worthwhile: today you can see 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…

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

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

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

When Donald Judd had created the second of his so significant units of art and architecture as an optimal presentation environment for this art at the end of the 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 redesigned according to his own designs.

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

Before Judd was able to form the Swiss artificial space into a total work of art, he suffered seriously and died on February 12, 1994 in New York at the age of 65.

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

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

In 2005, Elmgreen and Dragset "Prada Marfa" in the desert, a short distance from Marfa. The cult shop, a bit off the beaten track, featured authentic Prada handbags and shoes: www.graymalin.com/ . The artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset stayed in Marfa and installed the multifunctional art space "Ballroom Marfa ," where art films are shown, musical performances are held, and exhibitions and art installations are presented.

Sonic Youth gave a free rock concert in the village, Rad-Profi Lance Armstrong rented a loft (when he was still a respected bike professional), the Coen brothers made a few scenes from the cult film "No Country for Old Men" in Marfa (James Dean's last film "Giants" was completely made in Marfa).

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

Each year, Marfa welcomes six times as many visitors as its population. For art lovers, the long journey is a kind of pilgrimage; American author Lewis Hyde dubbed Chinati the "Taj Mahal of America."

Donald Judd is very present today's art world

Donald Judd is more exhibited today than at the beginning of his career as an artist. The solo exhibition "Donald Judd - Mueblles Y Grabados" in the Galería Elvira González in Madrid, group exhibitions with works Donald Judd run through the world in seven locations in the Galería Elvira González in Galería Elvira González:

• "The Natural Order of Things" in the Museo Jumex in Mexico City (until May 08, 2016)
• "The Saturday Collection: Meio Século de Arte Europeia e Americana. Part 1" im Museu Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporânea Porto (until May 8, 2016)
• "Dansaekhwa and Minimimism" at Blum & PoE New York City (until May 21, 2016)
• "Drawing Dialogues: Selections from the Sol Lewitt Collection" in the Drawing Center New York City (until June 2016)
• "Objects and Bodies at Rest and in Motion" in the Moderna Museet Stockholm (until June 2016)
• "Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Kenneth Noland: A Dialogue" in the Leo Castelli Gallery New York City (by the end of June 2016)
• "Sculpture on the Move 1946-2016" in the Museum of Contemporary Art Basel (until September 2016)

Approximately as many exhibitions as Donald Judd presented in the entire first decade of his artistic career; more will follow in 2016 and beyond.

You can book a visit to Marfa or simply browse the building at 101 Spring Street on the Judd Foundation

• Dan Flavin, works in the context of his friendship with Donald Judd
• Donald Judd and Trisha Brown, including the joint work "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 in 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 engagement
• From the Vault: Donald Judd's life and work in selected, partly unpublished documents from the "family crypt" 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, Ingólfur 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 public programs (readings, performances, exhibitions, and special events), the Robert Irwin Project, and the next "Chinati Weekend" in October 2016.

Featuring new and special exhibitions, discussions, performances, the annual charity dinner, and a very special view of Judd's "100 works in mill aluminum" at sunset. Most of the offerings are free to attend. You can also become a member of the foundation or purchase limited editions, prints, and books in the store. High-resolution images of a whole range of artworks from the permanent collection are available for media.

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

A few Donald-Judd legends

Donald Judd retired to Marfa. Judd detested New York's confines, noise, and climate (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 an isolated, closed world for art connoisseurs and artists were just gaining momentum, Judd was already revealing his contempt for the art world.

"only show business and lazy spells" , and he announced that without any consideration in public: "I believe that today the largest part of today's art rejects it to recognize any kind of absolute or general morality." But also: "I assume that a kind of morality can be seen in the endeavor to do his job well."

His retreat to Marfa was not just an escape from New York, but had a broader meaning: Judd wanted to create a place where "a part 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 strict standard for the art of this period in this part of the world must also be set somewhere.

The fact that Judd felt called to set this yardstick testifies to healthy trust in the value of his work - which should be confirmed by the leading art scientists in the world.

Judd demanded that he think outside the box, not only of himself but also of the people he worked with. There's an anecdote about him securing doors with padlocks. When an employee asked for the combination, he pointed to the date of the Battle of Waterloo and said the employee should and could figure it out for themselves.

The incredulous outrage with which a journalist of a leading German news magazine tells this episode in 2010 reveals attentive readers that this journalist has not yet reached the information age two decades after this incident ...

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

Donald Judd's life's work provides the following artists a pleasant template: It is ok to concentrate on his art, just make his thing and develop his own art style without throwing his own person on the market.

Without necessarily turning every work of art into a highly publicized event, without putting your face in every newspaper and on every television channel, without constantly being at the center of the action. You can simply pursue your activity, and anyone interested will find it, even if it's in the middle of the desert.

Donald Judd delivers wonderful templates to all creative people, first of all with the idea of ​​discovering the materials that our world offers us and thoroughly dealing with a material before you go to your workmanship. Then very specific, with many wonderful inspiration.

The perfectionist usually didn't say very much in function and/or design, so he designed furniture himself. Beds and tables, shelves and chairs, simple and yet completely functional like Shaker furniture.

• A shelf can be constructed as simple and yet full of aesthetics: artofthemoooc.org/
• Or so simple and yet very extraordinary: www.artnet.com/
• So a seating group can look straightforward that "more can": reverent.org/
• Or so straightforward, with potential for a lot of comfort: www.port-magazine.com
• Just a desk that offers more space: www.die-neue-skamme.de/
• A room can be so flooded with light: static1.squarespace.com/
• Privacy in bed is hardly more relaxed: The189.com/

In a portrait of Donald Judds it can be read that he had had bad experiences with the presentation of his works because visitors did not approach his art with the necessary respect or distance. So B. in the Stuttgart State Gallery for years a Judd sculpture (a cuboid) hung near the entrance that was confused by the visitors with the cloakroom; They put hats and jackets on them.

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

Dealing with Donald Judd's work can also bring confirmation and relief to many people. Judd has dealt with philosophy and art history in the world and has developed a restriction to the essentials from the knowledge acquired. A look at things and the world that is very big. For all people who no longer feel like setting up their living environment according to the sales specifications of companies.

For all people who no longer feel like doing their rooms with imported furniture folds that fly apart after the first move. For all people who generally no longer feel like flooding with short -lived consumer goods that were produced under inhumane circumstances.

Minimalism , with an idea of ​​reflection on the core of things, on meaningful life and action, provides many answers to the questions that life in an increasingly complicated world poses. Donald Judd took this path of concentration and self -reflection very early, at a time that today's contemporaries only appeared less chaotic than the present, in truth the world was always right, unjust and incomprehensible, and it was always almost the same extent.

In truth, we even have a big advantage today: In contrast to the people of Donald Judd's generation, each of us can inform themselves with a few clicks about the life of people like Donald Judd and draw their own conclusions from the experienced ...

If enough of the Berliners, Cologne, Frankfurters, Dortmunders, Essener and Leipzigern would find out about Donald Judd's life with longing for country life, Gosen-Neu Zittau and Schollene, Beggerow and Kusel, Herne, Burgkirchen an der Alz, Sorge and Freudenburg have long been a new and long-lasting reason to be happy ... Real estate prices continuously, in contrast to the rest of the USA.

Thankfully, Donald Judd has given the normally earning person enough of his art, who can be viewed (almost) free of charge, since the prices of his art are now in the double -digit million range ...

You can find art from Judd in Germany in the Hamburg Bahnhof Museum for the Presentation of Berlin, in the art collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, in the Josef Albers Museum Bottrop, in the Weserburg Museum for Modern Art Bremen, in the Kolumba Cologne, in the Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, in the K20 Düsseldorf, in the Museum Folkwang Essen, in the Museum for Modern Art Frankfurt/Main, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, in the Center for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe, in the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, in the municipal museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach, in the Sindelfingen show, the Kunsthalle Weishaupt Ulm, the new Museum Weimar and the Museum Wiesbaden.