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Donald Judd at Tate Modern

Art in America, Dec, 2004 by Phyllis Tuchman

This compact survey was almost perfect. Comprising some 40 works, the show opened, in its Tate installation, with paintings executed by Judd in 1961; 11 rooms later, it closed with a pair of wall stacks fabricated shortly before the artist died in February 1994, age 65. The show is currently on view at the Museum fur Gegenwart Kunst in Basel [to Jan. 9].

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For almost three decades, Judd was engaged with an art of theme and variation that, as Roberta Smith pointed out years ago, he developed in a leapfrog manner. In this display, his "inventions"--the forms most individual and characteristic of his oeuvre--were emphasized, an apt way to honor someone exacting and meticulous who cared about who did what first. Well chosen, yet not exhaustive, the retrospective, mounted by the Tate's director, Nicholas Serota, included none of Judd's oddballs or wrong turns (such as his open-centered, elliptical floor piece of 1964). Crisp, rectilinear shapes and stunning bursts of color prevailed. The broad, uninflected surfaces of Judd's blocky structures are not as austere as verbal descriptions often suggest. Those produced in brass, anodized aluminum or galvanized iron impart a golden glow or a silvery shiver. An enticing palette appropriated from once-popular hues of iridescent automobile lacquer introduces an unusual aspect to a number of works.

This show makes it abundantly clear that the various ways Judd alternates metallic planes with pockets of space is critical. Although the Tate advertised a talk treating "how Judd investigated volume and mass," the artist cared deeply about volume, but not mass. He used thin sheets of metal to call attention to the spaces being contained, which is worlds apart from being engaged with mass. This lack of feeling for heft underscores Judd's commitment to pictorial issues rather than sculptural practices.

The importance of Judd's origins as a painter cannot be overstressed. Serota got this across with some early examples. The impastoed surfaces of a work from 1961 that includes an inset baking pan and one from 1962 centered on a Plexiglas "O" are wonderfully nuanced. Once wooden structures are introduced, followed by metal ones, surface animation is rejected while fields of color survive intact.

Five early red works stand in for many others with similar aspects. This group is all that's needed to present the artist's initial thoughts about what he termed specific objects. It wasn't all smooth sailing: a chartreuse box with yellow enamel on an iron channel strikes a discordant note. Still, the artist quickly realized the direction he would take.

It's been said that Judd's is not an art of detail. This presentation suggests otherwise. The early works feature bolts and screws. Later on, insistently precise edges and differently textured materials and pristine surfaces constitute meticulous detailing. Eventually, screws return and edges become even more prominent in complicated, multipart late pieces featuring harsh colors and linear accents.

Unlike the Whitney Museum's survey of 1988, the current show features a considerable representation of the late work. Several of these pieces are disappointing: they are clunky and diffuse. The art in the last rooms doesn't feel as fresh as the works from the 1960s and early 1970s. Color and geometry remain primary concerns; but handled more complexly, they lose some of their immediacy. Perhaps, during his last period, while occupied with organizing the vast spaces at his foundation in Marfa, Tex., and designing and fabricating some epic, large-scale works, Judd was less attuned to dealing with gallery-sized objects.

The Tate galleries, criticized by some for being too small to house an in-depth view of works of this nature, resemble spaces at the old Green Gallery, or Leo Castelli's original quarters on East 77th Street. Below high ceilings, in the Tate's moderately scaled rooms, the stacks never looked better, and throughout, Judd's complex treatment of a multiplicity of rectilinear forms was thrillingly apparent. Filled with revelations, the Tate show approached Judd one piece at a time--just the way he would have wanted it.

Donald Judd at Tate Modern

Art in America, Dec, 2004 by Phyllis Tuchman

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