Judd’s boxes were made by factory workers, not by the artist—but he provided instructions.
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969, ten copper units, each 9 x 40 x 31 inches with 9 inch intervals (Guggenheim Museum, New York)
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Dr. Shana Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:00] We’re looking at a sculpture that in many ways doesn’t really seem to be…
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:12] A sculpture, it’s not freestanding.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:13] It’s not. It’s more like a relief, but it sticks…
Dr. Harris: [0:00] But it’s not really a relief.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:17] Not really, because there is no background that it’s attached to.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] They’re isolated units, all the same.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:23] That’s right. This is a work by Donald Judd, and it’s a piece of Minimalist sculpture. It was done in 1969, and it’s an untitled work. He would have had the exact same form replicated over and over again, so each one of those boxes that you see there were not made by him. It was also made in a factory, so it has a machine-made aesthetic to it.
Dr. Harris: [0:50] Somehow it seems to me like it’s made to interact in the space of the gallery.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:55] Absolutely. In fact, he’s very specific in giving instructions on how to hang this, how to attach it to the wall, that each one be spaced six inches apart. Usually, the work, the first time it was made, it was supposed to be evenly spaced all the way up to the ceiling. So it would be somewhat dictated by…
Dr. Harris: [0:00] By the height.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [1:19] …by a normal height of a ceiling. Of course, that would change depending on what space you’re hanging.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] This one doesn’t do that.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:00] Right. I think that’s because of the photograph that we’re looking at, particularly.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] It’s made of something that has a reflective surface.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:00] High sheen to it, the outside of it is brass. It’s difficult to see here, but there are plexi windows that are the tops of each one of these boxes. You can see through it.
[1:50] Sometimes, depending on which piece it is, they’re intensely colored pink or a yellowish color or translucent, so it interacts with the space and creates a shadow and coloristic effect on the wall, the blank wall of the gallery.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] Should we be thinking back here to sculptures made of bronze?
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [2:02] I think so, but also the negation of that. One of the things that Judd and other Minimalists are trying to do are to be of their time. There’s that whole tradition that he’s continuing of modern art, where you choose the materials and the themes of your own time.
[2:30] And here, to choose something that is brass, which can be used in older art, but to make it look like it’s sheet metal, something that comes out of a factory and in fact is not made by him but made by other workers, is very important, and the plexi is an altogether new material.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] It really speaks to our factory, industrial culture.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [2:35] Exactly, and it is what it is. It doesn’t disguise itself. He’s very explicit about not trying to make illusionistic art. He doesn’t want to make a sculpture look like a person or a space that isn’t there.
[2:47] Instead, they’re clearly boxes, and the plexi allows you to see that they’re not solid. There’s a clarity and a literal quality that he wants to bring out.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] It also reminds me of a skyscraper or other kinds of modernist forms.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:00] It does evoke that, and just the sheer replication of the same form over and over again…
Dr. Harris: [3:09] Over and over again, it’s very modern.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [0:00] …it suggests machine production and one thing being…
Dr. Harris: [3:14] Going shopping and seeing everything the same in the grocery store, 900 versions of the same thing.
Dr. Gallagher-Lindsay: [3:20] Exactly. Right, a product-like quality to it. It’s easy to see how the clean qualities of it, the shininess of it, and also the plexi, maybe at first glance it seems oversimplified. On further scrutiny, there’s a lot of color and reflection and light at play.
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