Lot 142 D

Donald Judd began working with large box-shaped objects made of plywood at the beginning of the 1960s. By being placed directly on the ground, they formed a direct connection to the surrounding space, their block-like character broken open by a half pipe-shaped opening on the top. They are painted entirely with cadmium red - a colour tone to which the artist attributed particular importance. According to the artist, the light, bright red is the only colour which makes the real dimensions and the sharp-edged contours of the cubic objects precisely visible.
Having begun his artistic career as a painter, these wooden box-objects mark a deciding step from two to three-dimensionality. “When Judd came to the conclusion that eight corners of a work on the floor were more important than four on the wall, and that red colour on an object is more interesting as a contrast of three tones, the step in the direction of the whole room was taken. He found that the Box opened up many new possibilities, so that he no longer had to master a weekly crisis”, Thomas Kellein described the completely new orientation. “The work always remains brisk and direct, a task for the viewer to look for the proverbial two sides to everything.” (Thomas Kellein, in: Exhib.cat. Donald Judd, Das Frühwerk, Bielefeld/Houston 2002/03, p. 40).
Judd resumed work on the box objects in the 1980s and 1990s, combining them with metal tubes, one of his preferred work materials. The previous opening in the cuboid was now visibly closed or even vaulted upwards in the space by unpainted tubes, creating completely new references through the dichotomy of the materials.