Donald Judd - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Monday, June 28, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Anne Marie Verna, Zurich

  • Catalogue Essay


    That Donald Judd is one of the most innovative post-war American artists is undisputed – his groundbreaking work has changed the course of modern sculpture. According to the artist, “Material, space and colour are the main aspects of visual art” (Dietmar Elger, ed., Donald Judd Colorist, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2000, p. 79). As Untitled demonstrates, Judd has utterly rejected the traditional conceits of sculpture by eschewing any traces of the artist’s hand and using industrial materials.
    Rather than the usual painted aluminium, the work presented here is composed of plywood and Plexiglas – a rare example from his illustrious career. With pristine geometric simplicity, Judd places the emphasis on purity of form, colour and materiality. Indeed, he called his works “specific objects” in order to stress their difference from conventional sculpture. First and foremost, Judd sought autonomy for his constructed objects and the spaces created by them. Notions of scale and order are explored, but it is the relationship between the object, the viewer and the surrounding environment that is central to the work. Judd’s unique vision, as seen here, is more than an investigation of material, space and colour; such a radical approach to art has had lasting influence in contemporary art, architecture and design.

  • 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

19

Untitled (92-4 Ballantine)

1992
Douglas fir plywood and purple plexiglass.
25 x 100 x 25 cm (10 x 39 1/2 x 10 in).


Stamped ‘JUDD/BALLANTINE’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2010
London