Judd

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Donald Judd. Untitled. 1961

Donald Judd. Untitled. 1961. Oil on composition board mounted on wood, with inset tinned steel baking pan. 48 1/8 x 36 1/8 x 4" (122.2 x 91.8 x 10.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Barbara Rose. © 2020 Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Curator, Ann Temkin: This untitled painting from 1961 has the very unusual feature of a normal metal loaf pan from the kitchen, stuck into the middle of it.

In Renaissance painting, one thought of the picture as a window into the imaginary world that the painting depicts. Here, it becomes very clear that Judd is not interested in art as a metaphor or some sort of an imaginary story. He's interested in it as a fact which will serve as, well, hard to call it a painting anymore, but something that will hang on the wall and be a work of art.

These are requiring of the viewer absolutely nothing but their willingness to pay attention and to engage their senses, and to think about, “Oh, here I am having a different experience than I've had before.