In Part I of our exploration of Land Art in the American West, we covered the birth of the Land Art movement in the 01960s and some of the seminal works created by Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt and James Turrell, which expanded the definition of art and opened up new possibilities for the location of artworks. Drawn to the desert for its long vistas, compelling terrain, beautiful light and dark night skies, these artists pushed through the boundaries of art in their day to create monumental works that explored the expansiveness of earth and time. Though the early death of Smithson dampened the momentum of the movement, the ideas around Land Art had taken hold.
In Part II of our series, we move out of the 01960s to explore the work of three artists who created their major works during the 01970s and 01980s. We see a shift with these artists to a focus on complete control over the exhibition of their work and meticulously curating the experience the viewer has coupled with a goal of permanence of the artwork in situ. Marfa, Texas is only about 80 miles from our Clock Site, making Donald Judd’s work there especially relevant to us.
Donald Judd and Marfa, Texas
Donald Judd began his artistic career as a painter in New York in the late forties. He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in philosophy in 01953 and was soon making almost exclusively three-dimensional artwork. Like many other artists in the 01950s and 60s, he rejected traditional painting and sculpture — as well as the museum gallery system of exhibiting art — as too limited.
This reaction against the conventional art world manifested itself in different ways for different artists. Early large-scale Land Art such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jettyand Michael Heizer’s Double Negative was created in direct opposition to the idea that art was an object which could be exhibited in a room in a museum, or even purchased and mounted on a wall.
Land Artists literally fled New York City for the desert, where few art collectors ventured, and, in Heizer’s case, made negative artwork — excavations in the earth which could not be commercialized. Similarly, the subject of Judd’s artwork came to include “the relationship of the object to space and the larger environment.”¹ But as Judd’s work matured he strove to create art that was in the American Southwest, not simply outside New York City museums.
Judd had the opportunity to develop and articulate his own artistic perspectives by writing art criticism for major art journals in the early sixties. His 01964 essay Specific Objects defined an emerging approach to art. “The work is diverse,” he wrote, “and much in it that is not in painting and sculpture is also diverse. But there are some things that occur nearly in common.”
One main characteristic that Judd identified is three-dimensionality. He argued that this art “resembles sculpture more than it does painting, but it is nearer to painting.” Judd wanted to avoid both the composed nature of traditional sculpture (“Most sculpture is made part by part, by addition, composed. The main parts remain fairly discrete.”) and the illusionary nature of traditional painting (“Actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.”).
“Judd’s art produces local order, meaning that there is no framework surrounding creative experience.” — Art historian David Raskin²
Judd’s concern for the relationship between an art piece and the space surrounding it led him to develop very particular standards for how art should be displayed. He was extremely critical of the way most galleries curated their exhibits and made it one of his highest priorities to control the circumstances in which viewers experienced his art. Former Tate director Nicholas Serota writes that
his attention to the installation and presentation of his own work, and that of artists whom he admired, established new parameters for the display of art, challenging and eventually changing the conventions of museums.³
Judd wanted exhibits that were not only carefully installed, but also permanent. He observed that artists’ work could be distorted not only by improper display but by the passage of time. In later years, when he established The Chinati Foundation to permanently maintain the artwork at Marfa, Texas, he made his intentions clear:
Somewhere a portion of contemporary art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be. Somewhere, just as the platinum-iridium meter guarantees the tape measure, a strict measure must exist for the art of this time and place.⁴
Judd’s first opportunity to design his own exhibition space came in 01968 when he purchased a former garment factory in SoHo at 101 Spring Street.
Judd cleared the cast-iron-frame building out to create open and brightly sunlit floors — each one designated for either living, working or exhibiting art. Soon after, though, his aspirations outgrew the dense urban setting of New York City and he began searching the southwestern U.S. for a site where he could permanently house comprehensive collections of his own and other artists’ work. This search led him to Marfa, a small town in western Texas where he was to spend much of his life converting old industrial buildings into meticulously designed living, working and exhibition spaces.
Donald Judd first encountered the landscape of western Texas in 01946 while en route to Los Angeles and sent a telegram from Van Horn — about 75 miles from Marfa — to his mother:
“dear mom van horn texas. 1260 population. nice town beautiful country mountains love don.”⁵
Judd began renting a house in Marfa in 01973 and purchased two former army buildings which he began to renovate, though he did not make Marfa his permanent residence until 01977. With the help of the Dia Foundation, whose mission “to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public” conforms remarkably well to Judd’s philosophy, Judd began purchasing more land and buildings. He also started working on the art pieces for Marfa, and in 01980 fifteen concrete sculptures were among the first pieces to be completed.
Another seminal work by Judd, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, reveals his deep commitment to both the works of art and the context in which they are exhibited. The 100 works were created over a number of years and installed in two large former artillery sheds. Extensive reworkings of these two buildings opened the interior space up to a flood of natural light through the replacement of the garage doors with walls of glass. Vaulted roofs were added to heighten and refine the proportions of the buildings; these proportions were echoed in the installation of the 100 works. The works themselves, 100 aluminum boxes with identical outside dimensions, but with different interior treatments, offer a subtle and continuously shifting experience of the artwork as the angle of the light outside changes and plays off the metal exteriors and varied interiors. The viewer is rewarded with patience and the piece reveals itself over time.
In 01986, Judd formed The Chinati Foundation to ensure that the site would continue to develop and to be maintained, and the following year he held an open house in Marfa with the town’s residents, understanding that a permanent installation there would be an important part of the community. The complex now includes 15 buildings — mostly old military facilities — as well as ranch land, and permanently displays bodies of work installed not only by Donald Judd, but by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, John Chamberlain, and several others.
Judd’s careful execution of his vision for Marfa allowed him and the artists he invited there to create artwork on their own terms. An artist’s control over their work often diminishes or disappears once it leaves their studio, entering the world of art collectors or museums where it can continue to change hands indefinitely. Marfa offered the opportunity for Judd to be both artist and curator, and it assured that his installations would remain unaltered as long as the institutions that maintain them survive. For Judd, these conditions were paramount.
Judd’s own buildings and those of the Chinati Foundation manifest his ideals: his demands on art and on the manner of its installation; its connection to life as it is lived, to architecture, and to the landscape.⁶
Donald Judd passed away in 01994, having established The Chinati Foundation as a caretaker for Marfa as well as The Judd Foundation to maintain and preserve his own work there and in New York.
My first and last interest is in my relation to the natural world, all of it, all the way out. This interest includes my existence […] the existence of everything and the space and time that is created by the existing things. Art emulates this creation or definition by also creating, on a small scale, space and time. — Donald Judd
