Donald Judd
Untitled, 1975

Clear anodized aluminum and brown plexiglass
33 × 68 × 48 inches
(83.8 × 172.7 × 121.9 cm)

Artist
Type
Object 67
Date
1970s 14
Location

In 1969, Donald Judd conceived of a number of rectangular floor works of anodized aluminum with open ends and lined with acrylic sheets on the inside; they were made in blue, violet, green, and dark brown. “The box with the plexiglass [acrylic sheet] inside,” Judd said in 1971, “is an attempt to make a definite second surface.” He continued:

The inside is radically different from the outside. While the outside is definite and rigorous, the inside is indefinite. The interior appears to be larger than the exterior. The plastic is very slippery in look. There is one thing I know how to do well and that is to produce a plain, austere piece. It’s a quality that I like, and I get very skeptical about it. But I like to try other things to see what happens to the shape and surface. Also, I like to try different colors on the same form by using different materials.1

1 “Don Judd: An Interview with John Coplans,” in John Coplans, Don Judd, exh. cat. (Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1971),44.

Selected Bibliography

Viladas, Pilar. “A Sense of Proportion.” Progressive Architecture, April 1985, 106 (ill.).

Haskell, Barbara. Donald Judd. Exh. cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1989, 128 (fig. 91).

Donald Judd:Räume / Spaces. Ostfildern: Cantz, 1993, 43 (ill.).

Bertoni, Franco. Minimalist Design. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2004, 7 (ill.).

Serota, Nicholas, ed. Donald Judd. Exh. cat. London: Tate Publishing, 2004, 136 (ill.).