Donald Judd: The Early Works 1956-1968 Book

Like no other sculptor today, Donald Judd has informed our understanding of art and its relationship to space. The Panoramas Gallery organized his first solo exhibition in 1957, at a time in which he was still focused on painting, yet moving from the flat picture plane towards the third dimension. His cadmium red pictures cut through with stripes or incisions led the viewer to perceive space as self-evident. From there Judd moved toward a complete abandonment of painting, recognizing, in the early 60s, that "actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface." His switch from painting to sculpture was coincident with a growing interest in architecture and in industrial processes and materials, such as galvanized steel, concrete, plywood, and aluminum, which he used to create large, hollow, Minimalist sculptures. Documented here for the first time is this very crucial development, from the early work of the 1950s to 1968, the point at which Judd's artistic vocabulary reached its complete formation. Numerous works, including previously unrecorded paintings, sculptures, sketches, and works on paper, appear here alongside unpublished documents and texts by Judd himself. Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or popularizing of abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist's artistic consciousness. Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all. --Donald Judd, 1965 Edited and with an essay by Thomas Kellein. Texts by Donald Judd. Hardcover, 184 pages, 80 colorRead More