Donald Judd - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Wednesday, February 16, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Catalogue Essay

    One of the most significant American artists of the post-war period, Donald Judd changed the course of modern sculpture. He broke new ground in his exploration of volume, interval, space and colour by rejecting the tradition of artistic expression and craftsmanship, using industrial materials such as Plexiglas, sheet metal and plywood. From the mid-1960s, he even had his works fabricated by external manufacturers. By encouraging concentration on the volume and presence of the structure and the space around it, Judd's work draws particular attention to the relationship between the object, the viewer, and its environment. This relationship became a central focus of Judd's career, and he devoted much of his later life to the sympathetic installation of his own work.
    Judd's engagement with philosophy, architecture, design and politics informed his own work, and influenced succeeding generations of artists and designers. His pared-down forms and sensuous use of industrial materials remain a feature of much contemporary art, architecture and design. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he produced radical work that eschewed the classical European ideals of representational sculpture. Judd believed that art should not represent anything, that it should unequivocally stand on its own and simply exist. The present lot is one of the most interesting from the critically acclaimed Swiss Box series. Begun in 1983, the series allowed Judd a new-found exuberance as a colourist. With such works as Untitled (89-30), Judd started incorporating the brilliant hues of industrial paints in his sculptures treating color formally as an object. Untitled (89-30) is a classic intimate Judd volumetric wall piece. As the viewer moves across the work, subtle elements of the work begin to emerge. Judd creates a void where space, light and object play and intertwine to create an internal pool of colours.

  • Artist Biography

    Donald Judd

    American • 1928 - 1994

    Donald Judd came to critical acclaim in the 1960s with his simple, yet revolutionary, three-dimensional floor and wall objects made from new industrial materials, such as anodized aluminum, plywood and Plexiglas, which had no precedent in the visual arts. His oeuvre is characterized by the central constitutive elements of color, material and space. Rejecting the illusionism of painting and seeking an aesthetic freed from metaphorical associations, Judd sought to explore the relationship between art object, viewer and surrounding space with his so-called "specific objects." From the outset of his three-decade-long career, Judd delegated the fabrication to specialized technicians. Though associated with the minimalist movement, Judd did not wish to confine his practice to this categorization.

     

    Inspired by architecture, the artist also designed and produced his own furniture, predominantly in wood, and eventually hired a diverse team of carpenters late in his career.

    View More Works

16

Untitled (89-30)

1989
Polychrome pulver on aluminum.
29.5 x 59.9 x 30.5 cm (11 3/5 x 23 3/5 x 12 in).
Incised “Donald Judd 89-30 lascaux materials ltd. brooklyn. n.y.” on the reverse.

Estimate
£120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for £169,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

17 Feb 2011
London