唐納德·賈德

利奧‧卡斯泰利畫廊，紐約（LC＃134B)
洛克斯利‧謝伊畫廊，明尼阿波利斯
高古軒畫廊，洛杉磯
傑里v馬格寧收藏，洛杉磯
安東尼‧梅爾畫廊，三藩市
由現藏家購自上述人士處

達德利‧德爾‧巴爾素、羅伯塔‧史密斯和布萊頓‧史密斯，《唐納德‧賈德繪畫、物件、彫版專題目錄，1960－1974》，渥太華，1974年，品號109，頁154

This sculpture is in excellent condition. Close inspection reveals an extremely thin and short mark on the top side 1 inch from the front edge and ½ inch from the right, and some very faint handling marks on the underside towards the left edge.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Donald Judd, the eloquent scion of sculptural Minimalism, catapulted to formal critical acclaim upon the debut of his first one-person exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in 1968. The exhibition traced Judd's development since 1962, spanning the seminal years during which the artist formulated his critical ideas about art and developed the fundamental forms and compositions that would occupy him throughout his oeuvre. Galvanized forms and progressions were lauded by the critic James Mellow: "make no mistake about it...[Judd's show] constitutes a triumph for a difficult new order of art....The importance of the New York showing, the largest exhibition of his work to date, is that it gives the imprimatur of the establishment to a style which, if not so radically new as the claims made for it, is nonetheless significantly different from the forms of art that preceded it." (James Mellow as quoted: James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, 2001, New Haven, p. 248). Even Clement Greenberg conceded the success of the show in addition to the verifiable triumph and veracity of the Minimalist movement as a result. "It is hardly two years since Minimal Art first appeared as a coherent movement, and it is already more the rage among artists than Pop or Op ever was." (Ibid, p. 247).

Judd was indisputably a key figure associated with the emergence of Minimal art during the 1960s; trained as a painter, he sought to break from that medium and move his work into three dimensions. His "specific objects," fabricated from industrial materials, are literal in their shape, structure, and support, wherein the three-dimensional whole is more important than the individual parts. Judd's first progression dates from 1964, and was a structure characterized by a Fibonacci mathematical premise in that intervals "progressively" increased while the width of the segments "progressively" decreased although Judd stipulated that progressions be shown horizontally and that the orientation can be flipped. Judd had been making other sculptural wall reliefs the previous year, but found endless possibilities in this radical new form. As early as 1964, Judd began to have his sculptures constructed by a fabricator, consistently using industrial materials such as iron, aluminum and Plexiglas. The present work, rendered in a galvanized iron that bears associations with industry and material culture, is among Judd's most beautiful surfaces, as the forms "luxuriate in a web of zinc crystals that electrochemically replicate Pollock's biomechanical process." (David Raskin, Donald Judd, 2010, New Haven, p.  46).

The earliest example of Judd's employment of galvanized iron was in 1961 (DSS 25), when he attached curved sections of galvanized iron to the top and bottom of monochromatic wood surfaces. The present work, Untitled (DSS 109) is a seminal example of Judd's most significant sculptural interests; first and foremost, a sculptural object installed on the wall, the intangible engagement with the void, and most basically, the continual reworking and elaboration of an existing serial construction. The form of Untitled (DSS 109) was first realized in DSS 102, which was one of three examples (1967, 1968, 1970 in red lacquer over galvanized iron). There are three examples of this work DSS 109: the first fabricated in 1967, the second fabricated in 1969 and the third in 1970. Importantly, the same form is also used for DSS 219 (brass, 1970), DSS 237 (copper, 1970) and DSS 260 (stainless steel, 1971).

What at first glance may appear quotidian in a sculpture by Donald Judd is in fact, far from it. Galvanized iron becomes subservient to the tenets of a mathematical formula, in order to avoid subjective, 'expressive' qualities. In addition to his remarkable career as a sculptor, Judd was an important writer and critic, penning a seminal text Specific Objects in 1965. In the essay, Judd firmly identified what he saw as problematic about painting and illusionism, the end of representational art, and the need to work in three dimensions utilizing what he referred to as "actual space."  The idea of repetition goes hand in hand with that. If you have one unit used again and again and again, this effect goes against the idea of Romantic expression, or personal subjective sentiment. In fact, for Judd what mattered was the placement of these pieces in their environment, very deliberately spaced between walls, floor and ceiling. There is nothing inherently magical about any of these units despite the beauty they exude for the viewer. This is one of the very important contributions that Judd's art makes: it is as much about the space as it is about object.