Donald Judd

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Gagosian is pleased to present the first solo exhibition dedicated to Donald Judd (1928–1994) in Hong Kong. Judd played a central role in defining the art of his time, and his work continues to be influential today. The exhibition will feature significant pieces from the 1960s through the 1990s and is the gallery’s first presentation of Judd’s work since announcing its representation of the artist and Judd Foundation in September.

The exhibition highlights a selection of Judd’s single-unit wall pieces from 1965 through 1991. They are made with some of the primary elements in his material vocabulary: galvanized iron, colored plexiglass, plywood, anodized aluminum, and painted aluminum. The carefully proportioned forms of the works emphasize the intrinsic qualities of their materials and the relationships between their parts and the whole.

Also on view in Hong Kong are two floor pieces from 1989 made from unpainted Douglas fir plywood. Defined by their horizontal and vertical planes, with segments arranged on a diagonal, these works’ precise internal division transforms their occupation of space and effectively channels light and shade. As such, they typify the way in which the structural clarity of Judd’s art heightens perceptual exchange between the work, its surroundings, and the viewer.

Judd began as a painter in the 1950s, but by the early 1960s he came to regard spatial concerns as paramount (though he referred to his objects as three-dimensional works rather than sculptures). Through his globally influential visual work, as well as in his incisive critical and theoretical writing, he articulated new possibilities for an art that exists on its own determinedly physical terms, removed from notions of metaphor and illusion. To this end, he designated that his works were untitled and developed new terms to describe them, including wall piece—a single unit or multiple units designed to hang on the wall—and floor piece—a work that stands directly on the floor without a traditional sculptural pedestal. Examples of both wall pieces and floor pieces are on view at Gagosian Hong Kong, together with a set of Judd’s woodcut prints. Created in 1992–93 on handmade Korean hanji paper, these twenty prints feature compositions of rectangular blocks and gridded forms in saturated colors.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Donald Judd was born in 1928 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and died in 1994 in New York. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;
Tate, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1968 and 1988); Stedelijk
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1970, traveled to Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Kunstverein Hannover, Germany; and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1975); and Tate Modern, London (2004, traveled to Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany; and Kunstmuseum Basel). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented a major retrospective of Judd’s work from March 2020 to January 2021. Judd established Judd Foundation in 1977 to preserve his art, spaces, libraries, and archives in New York and in Marfa, Texas. He founded the Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati in 1986 for the permanent installation of his and his contemporaries’ large-scale works.