“It isn’t necessary for a work to have a lot of things to look at, to compare, to analyze one by one, to contemplate. The thing as a whole, its quality as a whole, is what is interesting.” DONALD JUDD

An innovative and complex artist, Donald Judd is widely considered to have shaped the face of 20th century, American art. Eschewing the traditions of sculpture, the artist triumphed the use of humble materials and sought to reduce all traces of the human hand from his works. His oeuvre disavowed art’s tendency to lean towards the illusionistic instead touting the importance of shape, repetition and surrounding. In this sense they encapsulate the principal tenets of Modernism, strongly in discussion at the time of their making, while also remaining highly prevalent today. Bold, ordered and striking in their simplicity Dudd’s works offer the possibility of unbounded experience and interpretation.

In the early 1960s, having abandoned painting, Judd turned towards creating free standing, three dimensional objects. Working in a number of man -made materials, including industrial plywood, concrete and color-impregnated Plexiglas, he developed a clear interest in repetition and simplicity - features which would become the trademarks for his canonical style. Keen to do away with the conventional categories of art, in his seminal text ‘Specific objects’ (published in 1965), Judd discussed how his works existed outside the realms of sculpture and painting, refuting archaic definition and paving the way for a new manner of discussing and examining objects.

Composed of clear anodized aluminum with amber Plexiglas, Untitled marks Judd’s the preoccupation with the synthetic and undervalued. Presenting these materials in his minimal and austere style, Dudd transforms them into an object of contemplation and monumentality. Faced with this work we are drawn to think not only about the aesthetic qualities of the shimmering pexiglass and the deep copper but also the minimal nature of its simple form, which imparts understandings of rationality and tranquility.

Through its rectangular shape and placement on a wall Untitled the work also bears uncanny allusions to painting. Meanwhile its flat, smooth surface and three dimensional natures hold ties to common understanding of sculpture. In this sense the work seems to teasingly oscillate between the two art forms, creating a sense of tension whilst also exemplifying Judd’s radical and influential view of art.