Donald Judd

“One day, I asked Judd if he had a project he wanted to do, and he said, ‘Yes, a piece that is simple but complex — no screws or bolts, just a single piece of metal…’
But he immediately warned me: ‘…it is expensive to do; we need to order 200 meters minimum of extruded aluminum.’ This did not frighten me at all, quite the contrary. I was thrilled to undertake this adventure with Don. And so it happened. The process took two years to finish. The result was a wonderful piece conceptually condensed into a typical Judd.”
Jörg Schellmann

“Judd sought explicitness and intelligibility, not content. The intake of clear vision would be content enough, could it be achieved. And that experience would not exclude perceptual illusion, contrary to what some critics have said, but would set illusion plainly against the stable background that supports it.”
Kenneth Baker

In 1991, Judd created a series of works in aluminum. As opposed to his other works that were often constructed from multiple elements of wood, metal, and/or acrylic sheeting that were attached together, this piece was created by pressing heated aluminum through a die (a process called extrusion) to create a specific form, 15 x 105 x 15 cm in dimensions. This extruded aluminum form was then anodized. Judd chose the anodizing process as opposed to other painting methods because he liked “the color to be in the material” and that, “Anodized aluminum, even though it’s a surface too, is a little better to me, because at least a little layer of it is color in the material” (the artist, quoted in an interview with Angeli Janhsen for Donald Judd, Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland, March 22, 1990). Judd considered material, space, and color to be the main aspects of visual art and in this 1991 work, these elements (ands their processes of fabrication) have been chosen carefully so as to create a specific unified experience with light, shadow, solidity, and openness.

“One day, I asked Judd if he had a project he wanted to do, and he said, ‘Yes, a piece that is simple but complex — no screws or bolts, just a single piece of metal…’
But he immediately warned me: ‘…it is expensive to do; we need to order 200 meters minimum of extruded aluminum.’ This did not frighten me at all, quite the contrary. I was thrilled to undertake this adventure with Don. And so it happened. The process took two years to finish. The result was a wonderful piece conceptually condensed into a typical Judd.”
Jörg Schellmann

“Judd sought explicitness and intelligibility, not content. The intake of clear vision would be content enough, could it be achieved. And that experience would not exclude perceptual illusion, contrary to what some critics have said, but would set illusion plainly against the stable background that supports it.”
Kenneth Baker

In 1991, Judd created a series of works in aluminum. As opposed to his other works that were often constructed from multiple elements of wood, metal, and/or acrylic sheeting that were attached together, this piece was created by pressing heated aluminum through a die (a process called extrusion) to create a specific form, 15 x 105 x 15 cm in dimensions. This extruded aluminum form was then anodized. Judd chose the anodizing process as opposed to other painting methods because he liked “the color to be in the material” and that, “Anodized aluminum, even though it’s a surface too, is a little better to me, because at least a little layer of it is color in the material” (the artist, quoted in an interview with Angeli Janhsen for Donald Judd, Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland, March 22, 1990). Judd considered material, space, and color to be the main aspects of visual art and in this 1991 work, these elements (ands their processes of fabrication) have been chosen carefully so as to create a specific unified experience with light, shadow, solidity, and openness.