Untitled

1967

American, 1928 - 1994

Untitled, 1967, is a prime example of Donald Judd's "specific objects," a description coined by the artist for a category of artwork that sought to clearly express its materials, component parts and composition. Here the hand of the artist has disappeared from the physical surface of the object, where industrial materials and surfaces rule and mathematics guide the final order of its elements.

Despite its sleek and abstract appearance, Untitled is reminiscent of classical friezes in its sense of balance and proportion and its play of solids and voids. The use of color creates distinct relationships within the proportioned structure of the work. A sense of movement is suggested by the steady presence of the uninterrupted bronze bar at the top, which contrasts with the staccato rhythm of the opaque red boxes on the bottom.

Painted steel boxes with brass tube

6 1/4 x 111 x 6 in. (15.9 x 281.9 x 15.2 cm)

Gift of Anne Gerber

2000.190

Provenance: [Leo Castelli Gallery, New York]; collection of Anne Gerber; gift to the Seattle Art Museum, December 14, 2000

Photo: Susan Cole

Not currently on view

“

I am not interested in the kind of expression that you have when you paint a painting with brush strokes… it's already done and I want to do something new.

”

Donald Judd, interview conducted by Bruce Hooton, February 3, 1965

The Sum of the Parts

Donald Judd said that "a shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself … it shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole." Beginning in the early 1960s, Judd emphasized the relevance of the individual parts of an artwork, as much as the work as a whole, so that the viewer is made acutely aware of all the components that make up the work and our experience of it. His geometric sculptures seem to be machine-made, yet they are handcrafted and carefully exhibited following specific instructions established by the artist. Judd's' work revolutionized the way other artists and viewers relate to both painting and sculpture by rigorously focusing on the basic components of perception-light, shadow, depth, color, volume and weight (or the lack there of).

American Sculpture in the 1960s: Use Of Industrial Materials

36 Small Copper Square, 1976, Carl Andre, 2003.44

Donald Judd's Legacy

Donald Judd's work has inspired many artists, even those as seemingly distinct as contemporary Chinese performance artist and photographer Zhang Huan. Huan's large format C-Prints blend classical portraits with nudes and landscape photography. Naked bodies simulate stacks or solid shapes and form human sculptures that appear homogeneous and standardized but reveal differences on a closer look. The geometric and modular forms in which the models are arranged or stacked in industrial and rural sites are unsettling. Huan's work confronts taboo topics in Chinese culture, like nudity, sexuality, social oppression and political and cultural repression, topics that are all part of his country's modern history. Recently Huan created a series of photographs in different countries and cities that explore issues related to cultural and personal identity, both individual and collective.

To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, 1995, Zhang Huan, 2002.23

What Are "Specific Objects"?

Photo: Paul Macapia

Promised gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum. Art © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Untitled, 1967, Donald Judd

One concept that is central to Judd's "specific objects" is the difference between void and solid space. By repetitively contrasting the two and displaying how they interact with each other, Judd's works establish a rhythm and achieve a monumentality that asserts itself in the room. Similarly, Judd studies the relationship between individual parts and the whole, never letting one or the other establish control. In this way, he demonstrates the concept of "specific objects."

Judd's association with minimalism was strenuously rejected by the artist, who claimed that the term reduced his work to unacceptable simplicity: "I don't think anyone's work is reductive. The most the term can mean is that new work doesn't have what the old work had.... New work is just as complex and developed as old work. Its color and structure and its quality aren't more simple than before; the work isn't narrow or somehow meaningful only as form. 'Minimal' and 'ABC' are recent reductions of 'reductive.'"

Photo: Susan Cole

Untitled, 1967, Donald Judd, 2000.190

Untitled, 1967, shows Judd at the height of his powers. Seven years into creating geometrical structures, Judd had become increasingly sophisticated in his indoor pieces. The sculptural qualities of the piece are defined by the smooth, light-reflecting surface of shiny brass on the top register and the bright orange boxes of irregular lengths at the bottom. From left to right, each box is smaller than the previous one, and alternating gaps (voids) between them increase in size from thinner to wider as the piece progresses toward the right, as if there were a void of similar proportion to each solid shape. Although the work appears heavier on the left side because of the progression of solid blocks, the increasingly large void spaces on the right balance the work, creating an equilibrium throughout.

Lead-Aluminum Plain, 1969, Carl Andre, 77.10

Untitled, 1967, makes for an interesting comparison with Carl Andre's Lead-Aluminum Plain, 1969. Andre and Judd shared a studio space in 1959 in which both artists experimented with industrial materials that they shaped into concrete geometrical forms. Andre stated, "My arrangements I've found are essentially the simplest I can arrive at, given a material and a place ... the one thing I learned in my work is that to make the work I wanted you couldn't impose properties on the materials. You have to reveal the properties of the material." (Carl Andre as quoted in Tate Liverpool Minimalism catalogue, 1978)

Media

109

Roy McMakin, artist, designer, and architect, shares his perspective on Donald Judd

Resources

Exhibition HistoryIrvine, Calif., Art Gallery, University of California Irvine, Five Sculptors: Andre, Flavin, Judd, Morris, Serra, Dec. 9-18. January Catalogue, 1969-1970.

Bellingham, Wash., Western Gallery, Western Washington State College, Contemporary Sculpture from Northwest Collections, Mar. 2-19, 1971.

Seattle, Wash., Seattle Art Museum, American Art: Third Quarter Century, Aug. 22-Oct. 14, 1973. Text by Jan van der Marck. Cat. no. 29, reproduced p. 81.

Seattle, Wash., Seattle Art Museum, American Sculpture: Three Decades, Nov. 15, 1984-Jan. 27, 1985. Back cover.

Seattle, Wash., Seattle Art Museum, Minimalism: Aftermath and Affinities, Mar. 27-Aug. 25, 1996.

Seattle, Wash., Seattle Art Museum, International Abstraction: Making Painting Real: Part I, May 2, 2003-Feb. 29, 2004.

Published ReferencesDonald Judd: A Catalogue of the Exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 24 May-6 July, 1975; Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Objects, and Wood-Blocks, 1960-1974. Edited by Brydon Smith. Ottawa, Canada: National Gallery of Canada, 1975. DSS no. 110, reproduced p. 154.