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Lot Essay
Described as a "closet hedonist", by Hilton Kramer in the New York Times review of the Donald Judd exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1971, Judd, the foremost artist of 'Minimalism' reveals in Untitled of 1984 newfound exuberance as a colourist. One of the first of numerous horizontal works that Judd began to conceive in 1984, Untitled blooms in its opulent multiplicity of jeweled hues. Defining a new formal and chromatic schema for the artist, this work was a highlight of his recent retrospective at the Tate Modern and graced its posters, announcement cards and other promotional items.
Untitled was the serendipitous result of an outdoor sculpture that Judd conceived for the exhibition Skulptor im 20. Jahrhundert in Meridian Park near Basel. Attempting to save on transportation costs, the artist used the Lehni factory in Switzerland for its execution and discovered that the company was able to bend thin sheets of aluminum and to enamel them in various colours. This industrial process, hitherto used to process furniture, enabled Judd to realize his artistic vision with his outdoor sculpture, and following its damage and subsequent destruction, to extend it to indoor wall pieces such as Untitled.
The format of the present incarnation follows that of the original outdoor sculpture; it consists of open boxes that are screwed to one another so that their openings face outwards and the centre piece is hollow. The boxes are all the same height, but vary in length; they increase progressively in 1:2:3 progressions from 30 to 60 to 90 cm (11 13/16 to 23 5/8 to 35 7/16 in.) in early versions such Untitled. Subsequent iterations follow a more complicated set of rules that produce very different sequences.
Up to this point, Judd's palette of industrial colours had been restricted to the colours of metals and Plexiglas, usually combining no more than two such colours. Untitled is groundbreaking because it uses more colours in a single work. Responding to the materials of modernity, Judd drew his palette from the RAL standard industrial chart of commercial paint colours, attracted to its choice of 163 nuanced variations of evocative labels. Judd was particularly drawn to the reds, neighboring yellows and oranges, through the purples and the works from 1984 consist predominantly of these tones. Describing the present work, the Tate Modern's exhibition catalogue states, "[it] combines RAL traffic purple, violet purple, traffic orange, golden yellow and sulphur yellow, with the single outsider, Capri blue. These combinations are built up in pairs: in each case two colours, one above the other, form a pair, which is rotated on its own axis so that the other colour is above or below. The top of the work repeats the colours of the lower row of the front, while the underside takes up the colours from the upper row. This produces an all-round sculpture, that is to say, a sculpture that presents equal yet different aspects on all its side and fully reveals its interior." (Donald Judd, exh. cat. Tate Modern, London, 2004, p. 215).
Explaining the thought process that led to his multi-coloured works, Judd stated that his aim was to use many strong colours but to avoid creating combinations that were harmonious or unharmonious. "I didn't want them to combine. I wanted a multiplicity all at once that I had not known before. This was very difficult. The construction of the work in panels limited the use of ratio, the extent of one colour to another, but it is perhaps just as well." (D. Judd cited in Ibid., p. 216). However as Untitled demonstrates, Judd achieves his vision of multiplicity without conforming to traditional ideas of "harmonious" composition while at the same time, creating a distinct gestalt that is unencumbered by its fractional and serial make-up which is based on a simple geometric progression.
Twenty years prior to his creation of Untitled, Judd had famously espoused what would become the cornerstone of Minimalist theory in an essay entitled "Specific Objects". He conceived of objects that were three-dimensional but non-referential, singular rather than made part by part, and involved with "real space" instead of illusion. He defined his own work in intense colour, which he thought most clearly defined an object in space, via the rectangular plane which related to painting but it repositioned within the viewer's environs, and through the absence of the sculptural base which instigated a phenomenological interaction with the beholder. Whether mounted on the wall or placed on the floor, whether comprising one physical piece or a stacked or mathematical progression, Judd intended for his work to be self-contained wholes navigating its stake in the world. However, rather than the "reduction", "austerity" and "rationality" which traditionally informed the standard understanding of Minimalism, Judd endowed his work in with an almost delirious chromatic infusion, stating at one point, "It is best to conceive everything as colour". (D. Judd cited in Ibid., p. 74). Untitled delivers on a career-long commitment to such a conception of art, indeed the work seems to be simultaneously held together and pulled apart by its near polymonochromatic surplus.
Sensuously decadent, but conforming to Judd's conception of "specific object", Untitled reveals the artist in his true light as an unrestrained colourist, as a "closet hedonist".
Untitled was the serendipitous result of an outdoor sculpture that Judd conceived for the exhibition Skulptor im 20. Jahrhundert in Meridian Park near Basel. Attempting to save on transportation costs, the artist used the Lehni factory in Switzerland for its execution and discovered that the company was able to bend thin sheets of aluminum and to enamel them in various colours. This industrial process, hitherto used to process furniture, enabled Judd to realize his artistic vision with his outdoor sculpture, and following its damage and subsequent destruction, to extend it to indoor wall pieces such as Untitled.
The format of the present incarnation follows that of the original outdoor sculpture; it consists of open boxes that are screwed to one another so that their openings face outwards and the centre piece is hollow. The boxes are all the same height, but vary in length; they increase progressively in 1:2:3 progressions from 30 to 60 to 90 cm (11 13/16 to 23 5/8 to 35 7/16 in.) in early versions such Untitled. Subsequent iterations follow a more complicated set of rules that produce very different sequences.
Up to this point, Judd's palette of industrial colours had been restricted to the colours of metals and Plexiglas, usually combining no more than two such colours. Untitled is groundbreaking because it uses more colours in a single work. Responding to the materials of modernity, Judd drew his palette from the RAL standard industrial chart of commercial paint colours, attracted to its choice of 163 nuanced variations of evocative labels. Judd was particularly drawn to the reds, neighboring yellows and oranges, through the purples and the works from 1984 consist predominantly of these tones. Describing the present work, the Tate Modern's exhibition catalogue states, "[it] combines RAL traffic purple, violet purple, traffic orange, golden yellow and sulphur yellow, with the single outsider, Capri blue. These combinations are built up in pairs: in each case two colours, one above the other, form a pair, which is rotated on its own axis so that the other colour is above or below. The top of the work repeats the colours of the lower row of the front, while the underside takes up the colours from the upper row. This produces an all-round sculpture, that is to say, a sculpture that presents equal yet different aspects on all its side and fully reveals its interior." (Donald Judd, exh. cat. Tate Modern, London, 2004, p. 215).
Explaining the thought process that led to his multi-coloured works, Judd stated that his aim was to use many strong colours but to avoid creating combinations that were harmonious or unharmonious. "I didn't want them to combine. I wanted a multiplicity all at once that I had not known before. This was very difficult. The construction of the work in panels limited the use of ratio, the extent of one colour to another, but it is perhaps just as well." (D. Judd cited in Ibid., p. 216). However as Untitled demonstrates, Judd achieves his vision of multiplicity without conforming to traditional ideas of "harmonious" composition while at the same time, creating a distinct gestalt that is unencumbered by its fractional and serial make-up which is based on a simple geometric progression.
Twenty years prior to his creation of Untitled, Judd had famously espoused what would become the cornerstone of Minimalist theory in an essay entitled "Specific Objects". He conceived of objects that were three-dimensional but non-referential, singular rather than made part by part, and involved with "real space" instead of illusion. He defined his own work in intense colour, which he thought most clearly defined an object in space, via the rectangular plane which related to painting but it repositioned within the viewer's environs, and through the absence of the sculptural base which instigated a phenomenological interaction with the beholder. Whether mounted on the wall or placed on the floor, whether comprising one physical piece or a stacked or mathematical progression, Judd intended for his work to be self-contained wholes navigating its stake in the world. However, rather than the "reduction", "austerity" and "rationality" which traditionally informed the standard understanding of Minimalism, Judd endowed his work in with an almost delirious chromatic infusion, stating at one point, "It is best to conceive everything as colour". (D. Judd cited in Ibid., p. 74). Untitled delivers on a career-long commitment to such a conception of art, indeed the work seems to be simultaneously held together and pulled apart by its near polymonochromatic surplus.
Sensuously decadent, but conforming to Judd's conception of "specific object", Untitled reveals the artist in his true light as an unrestrained colourist, as a "closet hedonist".