唐納德·賈德

Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
Jay Chiat, New York  
Christie's, New York, May 4, 1994, Lot 309
Private Collection, New Zealand (acquired from the above)

New York, Paula Cooper Gallery, Judd, October - November 1986
Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Donald Judd: Beelden/Sculptures 1965-1987, April - June 1987, cat. no. 45, p. 59, illustrated in color
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Donald Judd, October - December 1988, cat. no. 76, p. 109, illustrated in color

Joshua Decter, "Don Judd," Arts Magazine 61, December, 1986, p. 122, illustrated
Peter Clothier, "Living with Art: Jay Chiat," Art News 89, May, 1990, p. 113, illustrated in color (detail)

This sculpture is in excellent condition. Very close inspection shows some extremely faint and minor superficial handling marks from installation, primarily to the outer edges. There are a handful of extremely faint hairline scratches to the aluminum surfaces, as is typical of Judd's work, with some scattered more noticeable scratches on some outer sides, primarily in the bottom box at the center of the bottom half of the lateral right edge) and in the box third from bottom (also at the center of the bottom half of the lateral right edge.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Astounding in scale and impressive in sheer chromatic ambition, Untitled from 1986 is a quintessential example of Donald Judd’s radically innovative sculptural practice: austere in form and concept while aesthetically sophisticated in color and spatial treatment. Although he personally resisted any categorization, Judd was unquestionably one of the leading practitioners of Minimalism. Abiding by strict conceptual premises that he articulated with a discrete vocabulary of three-dimensional forms and materials, for Judd, the relationship of his specific objects to the wall and contiguous space was just as integral to his aesthetic concepts as the physical form itself.

Composed of six separate components, with each unit measuring almost twenty inches in height, the work exudes a sense of commanding power and authority, magnificently dominating its surroundings. Vivid dark red and blue Plexiglas contrast to brilliant effect with the gleaming silver of aluminum edges, whilst the surrounding wall space is suffused with a bluish-red glow as light is cast through the Plexiglas. The remarkable use of color ensures that the stack of rectilinear forms seems to pulsate with a form of inner energy and vibrancy: the result is an installation of profound beauty and meditative grace.

As with other works in this series, the empty space between the discrete components is of equal importance to the physical elements that make up the totemic form itself: the carefully measured distance between each individual element certifies that space becomes a tangible formal element of the work in its own right. No longer a void, emptiness becomes instead a positive entity and a key part of the viewer’s perception of the installation. Judd noted the existence of this phenomenon: “If two objects are close together they define the space in between. These definitions are infinite until the two objects are so far apart that the distance in between is no longer space. But then the passerby remembers that one was there and another here. The space between can be even more definite than the two objects which establish it; it can be a single space more than the two objects are a pair.” (Donald Judd, "Some aspects of color in general and red and black in particular," in Exh. Cat., Hannover, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Donald Judd, Colorist, 2000, p. 80) Untitled celebrates this glorification of spatial expansion, seeming to hover mysteriously above the ground as though lacking any visible means to support their notable mass.

In the 1970s, Judd increased the scale, complexity, and variety of his aesthetic investigations. Having rejected the concept of the handmade in the early 1960s, he utilized fabricators, such as the Bernstein Brothers in Queens, to eliminate any trace of the artist’s hand. Judd chose industrial materials such as steel, copper, Plexiglas, and aluminum to create the precise forms for his sculptures. Untitled extends this program in which Judd achieved his aspiration to eliminate illusion in his art through the creation of material objects of elemental force coexistent with intangible properties of light and air. The six units of aluminum and Plexiglas, evenly spaced on the wall, exhibit Judd’s increasing emphasis on created space and issues of site and presentation. With variations in individual interior spaces, Untitled elegantly expands Judd’s premise about spatial relations, enhanced by his genius for color and light.

Earlier in the 1960s, Judd employed colored Plexiglas as top and bottom surfaces or lateral sides, allowing light to expose the interior of the units and casting jewel-tone reflections on the wall. With Untitled, color and light create spatial complexity within the units, compounded by the addition of aluminum partitions in the interiors, positioned at various depths and latitudes in each box.  The richly colored Plexiglas is now placed at the back of each unit, aligning physically with the wall surface yet implying a limitless void extended beyond the wall. Judd added partitions of disparate positions within each unit, and as light and shadow play amongst the divisions, the asymmetry yields subtly different tonal variations and luminosity, thus rendering Untitled a veritable treatise on the richness that can be harnessed from the simplest and most refined means. Visually echoing Judd’s Stacks, the present work represents Judd’s extraordinary ability to move beyond previously inviolable philosophical and creative ideals towards an entirely new visual realm, one that possesses its own unique signification of exquisite beauty.