ART-PRESENTATION: Donald Judd, Cor-ten Steel Works

In the early 1960s Donald Judd abandoned painting, having recognized that “actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface”, he began to create art that used “real materials in real space”. He created objects that occupied 3-dimensional space and rejected illusionism. During this time, he created geometric shapes that stood out from the wall and eventually moved to freestanding works on the floor. He considered himself a painter but not a sculptor.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: David Zwirner Archive

In the exhibition of works in Cor-ten steel by Donald Judd, the selection features a range of forms in this distinctive material, which the artist began to produce in 1989 and would continue to elaborate on until his death in 1994. This is the first ever focused examination of Judd’s production in Cor-ten steel, this exhibition aims to elucidate this group of significant works and, by extension, Judd’s practice overall. As material the Cor-ten afforded Judd a new avenue for exploring many of the fundamental preoccupations of his oeuvre, such as the relationships between surface and volume, as well as color and form. Donald Judd began using cor-ten steel in the ‘80s for a small number of large scale works and by 1989 would create single and multi-part works with this material. The Cor-ten works are unique it that they are the only works the artist fabricated in Marfa, his home and laboratory. Donald Judd once said about the material that for years had resisted it, thinking that it was “Richard’s Serra material, but when I realized it was just a material, and how I would use it would different from how Richard used it”. The ability to make Cor-ten works in Marfa allowed Judd to quickly experiment with the material in a way not done before. El Taller Chihuahuense was a small-scale operation dedicated exclusively to the production of his works, the proximity of the workshop and ease of production was the closest Judd would return to a classical studio since his 19th Street loft where he made the works for his 1963 Green Gallery show by himself with his father’s help. Made almost entirely in Marfa, this works represents the culmination of three decades of aesthetic output and underscores the mastery and control over material and space that characterizes Judd’s work as a whole. Highlights from the exhibition include four floor works from 1989, each measuring 1 x 2 x 2 meters. Open only on the top, these works are divided vertically in different spatial configurations, sometimes introducing color, thus implicitly exploring serial repetition and difference. Another floor work, from 1979, one of Judd’s earliest efforts in Cor-ten steel, comprises six slender, modular units, which are positioned closely together so as to give the viewer the impression of a single, cohesive whole.Also in the exhibition are included a number of other wall-mounted forms that present the varying iterations that comprised Judd’s work. A group of four identically sized units from 1991 with painted yellow backs arranged in a square formation likewise underscores Judd’s ongoing investigation of form, color, spatial perception, and repetition. This exhibition is likely the largest collection of Donald Judd’s imposing Cor-ten steel sculptures ever assembled.

Info: Curator: Flavin Judd, David Zwirner Gallery, 537 West 20th Street, New York, Duration: 7/11-19/12/15, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com