Donald Judd made works informally referred to as single stacks comprised of a rectangular prism measuring 6 x 27 x 24 inches. When properly installed at roughly eye level, the work projects from the wall at four times the height of the object itself. Simple in form, a single stack not only encloses the actual space lying within, but simultaneously activates the surrounding area: the wall upon which the object is placed or the entire room within which it is situated. In a note from February 21, 1993 Judd wrote “The smallest, simplest work creates space around it, since there is so much space within.”1
This work was ordered October 21, 1969 from Bernstein Brothers, Inc., a sheet metal shop with whom Judd worked throughout his lifetime. Associated with Purchase Order 69-34, this work is not listed in the 1975 Donald Judd: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Objects and Wood-blocks 1960-1974.2
1 Donald Judd, “21 February 1993”, in Donald Judd Writings, ed. Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray (New York: Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books, 2016), 811.
2 Museum and Gallery Files, Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, Texas.