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Extended through January 22, 2022

Donald Judd

Paintings 1959–1961

November 10, 2021–January 22, 2022
555 West 24th Street, New York

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Works Exhibited

Donald Judd, untitled, 1959 Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 inches (127 × 106.7 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1959

Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 inches (127 × 106.7 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960 Oil on canvas, 31 × 25 inches (78.7 × 63.5 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960

Oil on canvas, 31 × 25 inches (78.7 × 63.5 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960 Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 inches (127 × 101.6 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960

Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 inches (127 × 101.6 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960 Oil on canvas, 40 × 36 inches (101.6 × 91.4 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960

Oil on canvas, 40 × 36 inches (101.6 × 91.4 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960 Oil on canvas, 67 ¾ × 103 inches (172.1 × 261.6 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960

Oil on canvas, 67 ¾ × 103 inches (172.1 × 261.6 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960 Oil and liquitex on canvas, 65 × 49 ½ inches (165.1 × 125.7 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1960

Oil and liquitex on canvas, 65 × 49 ½ inches (165.1 × 125.7 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 Oil on canvas, 67 ½ × 67 ½ inches (171.4 × 171.4 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961

Oil on canvas, 67 ½ × 67 ½ inches (171.4 × 171.4 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 inches (127 × 106.7 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961

Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 inches (127 × 106.7 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 Acrylic on canvas, 67 × 67 ¾ inches (170.2 × 172.1 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961

Acrylic on canvas, 67 × 67 ¾ inches (170.2 × 172.1 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 Oil on canvas, 45 ¼ × 45 ¼ inches (114.9 × 114.9 cm)© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961

Oil on canvas, 45 ¼ × 45 ¼ inches (114.9 × 114.9 cm)
© Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Silvia Ros

About

I think the origin of my work does lie in painting. My work doesn’t arise from sculpture; it comes out of the paintings of Pollock, Newman, Rothko.
—Donald Judd

Gagosian is pleased to present the gallery’s first exhibition of work by Donald Judd (1928–1994) in New York since announcing its representation of the artist and Judd Foundation in September. The exhibition features fifteen paintings dating from 1959 through 1961.

While Judd’s oeuvre is defined principally through his three-dimensional work—which he conceived in opposition to the essential properties of both conventional painting and sculpture—he began his practice as a painter while also taking graduate courses in art history at Columbia University in New York. In addition, he supported himself as a critic: beginning in 1959, and continuing for the next five years, he wrote prolifically for Art News and Arts Magazine, publishing incisive essays and reviews of contemporary art during a momentous era. Judd’s paintings make manifest the understanding of postwar modernism that he articulated in his writing.

The paintings on view are nonrepresentational and reject spatial illusionism. They precede relief works made later in 1961 in which Judd incorporated found objects, while his concern with volumetric space led him to abandon painting altogether by the following year. Featuring biomorphic shapes in blue and purple, as well as fields of white, black, gray, and cadmium red, they reflect an exploratory approach to formal issues of structure, materiality, and color. Their application ranges from dense impasto to thin wash, underpainting emerging at times through the layers of pigment.

Read more

Marta Kuzma, Eileen Costello, and Caitlin Murray in conversation surrounded by Donald Judd paintings.

In Conversation
Eileen Costello, Marta Kuzma, and Caitlin Murray on Donald Judd: Paintings

Art historian Eileen Costello and Yale School of Art professor Marta Kuzma discuss Donald Judd’s two-dimensional work and how the lessons he learned from the innovations of Abstract Expressionist and Color Field paintings permeate his entire body of work. Their conversation is moderated by Caitlin Murray, director of archives and programs at Judd Foundation.

Martha Buskirk and Peter Ballantine speaking with one another

In Conversation
Peter Ballantine and Martha Buskirk on Donald Judd

Peter Ballantine, Donald Judd’s longtime fabricator of plywood works, and Martha Buskirk, professor of art history and criticism at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, discuss the development, production, and history of the largest plywood construction Judd ever made, an untitled work from 1980.

Jordan Wolfson’s House with Face (2017) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Fall 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2022

The Fall 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Jordan Wolfson’s House with Face (2017) on its cover.

Image of Donald Judd with Jeff Kopie, Architecture Office, Marfa, Texas, 1993

There is No Neutral Space: The Architecture of Donald Judd, Part 2

In this second installment of a two-part essay, Julian Rose continues his exploration of Donald Judd’s engagement with architecture. Here, he examines the artist’s proposals for projects in Bregenz, Austria, and in Basel, arguing that Judd’s approach to shaping space provides a model for contemporary architectural production.

First Library, La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo: Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

Building a Legacy
Judd Foundation Archives

Richard Shiff speaks with Caitlin Murray, director of archives and programs at Judd Foundation, about the archive of Donald Judd, how to approach materials that occupy the gray area between document and art, and some of the considerations unique to stewarding an archive housed within and adjacent to spaces conceived by the artist.

Black and white image of Donald Judd inspecting the new roof on the south Artillery Shed, Marfa, Texas, c. 1984.

There Is No Neutral Space: The Architecture of Donald Judd, Part 1

Julian Rose explores the question: what does it mean for an artist to make architecture? Delving into the archives of Donald Judd, he examines three architectural projects by the artist. Here, in the first installment of a two-part essay, he begins with an invitation in Bregenz, Austria, in the early 1990s, before turning to an earlier project, in Marfa, Texas, begun in 1979.

News

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

In Conversation

Eileen Costello and Marta Kuzma on Donald Judd
Moderated by Caitlin Murray

Wednesday, November 17, 2021, 7pm est

Join Gagosian for a conversation between art historian Eileen Costello and Yale School of Art professor Marta Kuzma, moderated by Caitlin Murray, director of archives and programs at Judd Foundation, on the occasion of the exhibition Donald Judd: Paintings 1959–1961 at Gagosian, New York. Livestreaming from the exhibition in Chelsea, the trio will discuss Judd’s two-dimensional work and how the lessons he learned from the innovations of Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painters—including Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko—permeate his entire body of work. To join the online event, register at eventbrite.com.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1961 © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever