Judd Foundation

“The category of beautiful object can include art and furniture.” —Donald Judd In an interview from 1989, Judd was asked if he objected to people referring to his art as “beautiful objects,” and if he agreed when people regarded his works as among a number of beautiful art objects from past and present. His response: “That’s fine by me, because I like beautiful old things.” Judd then proceeded to describe 101 Spring Street, his home and studio in New York. Mentioning the antique furniture, his own, as well as the art installed in the space, and how it all worked together since there was visually no conflict. He stated that if the distinction was made between art, furniture, and design, he did not object to the category. In a photo-essay for the latest issue of Highsnobiety, writer @hayleyjeanclark explores 101 Spring Street through Judd’s own beautiful objects, including domestic items, furniture, art, and design. With an interview and captions by Flavin Judd, the piece allows readers to discover Judd’s radical understanding of the importance of paying attention to what surrounds you, of making space by considering the objects in every day life. Clark writes “To walk through the space is to be reminded that Judd was after something more demanding than a style. He sought a different relationship to the world of objects, and through them, to attention itself.” Read the full essay with photography by @billaltaright online and in print in the Spring 2026 issue of the magazine. Visit 101 Spring Street, permanently installed by Judd with his art, furniture, and design, as well as that of others, by booking a guided visit. Link in bio. Credits: Hayley J. Clark, “Judd’s Objects,” Highsnobiety @highsnobiety (Spring 2026). Photo Billal Taright. Donald Judd Art and Furniture © 2026 Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, in “Donald Judd: An Interview with John Griffiths,” For ‘Art & Design,’ May–June 1989. In ‘Donald Judd Interviews,’ 642.

Judd Foundation is pleased to announce ‘Donald Judd Spaces: 1977/2026’ at Architecture in Los Angeles. Opening this Saturday and on view through May 29. The exhibition includes two sets of photographs of Judd’s living and working spaces in New York and Texas captured fifty years apart, documenting the permanent nature of his installations. Based on a selection of archival photographs captured by Annabelle d’Huart, in 1977, the exhibition presents Judd’s residences and studios at 101 Spring Street and within La Mansana de Chinati, the Block, in Marfa. The photographs also include Judd at Casa Lujan, his first residence in town. The Archive Room will also be installed with a selection of archival publications on Judd’s work and spaces, from the catalogues of Architecture and Judd Foundation Archives. Join us at Architecture this Saturday, May 9 for a conversation with Flavin Judd and Ted Barrow (@tedbarrow ), with an introduction by Mahfuz Sultan (@mahfuzsultan ). Presented in conjunction with the launch of a new expanded edition of ‘Donald Judd Spaces’ (Judd Foundation and @mack_publishing ). The first copies of the publication in the U.S. will be available at Architecture and at the MACK booth at LAABF. Worldwide shipping begins in June. Donald Judd Spaces: 1977/2026 May 9-29, 2026 Architecture 8010 Melrose Ave Los Angeles, CA 90046 Image: 101 Spring Street, Judd Foundation, New York. Photo Charlie Rubin © Judd Foundation. Donald Judd Art © 2026 Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

“My work on the floor was a new form, creating space amply and strongly. The relationship could be the same to the wall.” —Donald Judd Judd’s first works in three dimensions were in his own words “the beginning of [his] own freedom.” Wholeness in art was a primary concern for Judd, and he considered traditional spatial relationships to the wall to be in direct opposition to this idea. Paintings, low reliefs, and high reliefs possessed for him problems he was trying to eliminate in his work. These were mainly illusionistic representation and composition. The placement on the wall, flattened the work and made it allude to other things. Judd wanted something that was a whole by itself and that derived a quality from its own form. By placing his work on the floor, he eliminated composition and illusion, through the work’s scale and relationship to space. In 1962, Judd made the first two works that were placed directly on the floor, which he later permanently installed at the Block in Marfa. For a short period after making this type of work, he believed he would not be able to go back to making works for the wall. However, he realized that the relationship of a work to the wall could be the same as that to the floor. By making the work project sufficiently, whether small or large, either low or high on the wall, he prevented it from being flattened. The untitled relief from 1993, and the untitled floor work from 1991 shown above, are an example of Judd’s return to making wall works and floor works of the same forms made early in his practice. Permanently installed in the Ranch Office these works illustrate his ongoing concern with space and three-dimensionality. Visit the Block, where Judd’s first works in three-dimensions are permanently installed, and the Ranch Office, installed with his wall works and floor works from the 1990s, by booking a guided visit. Link in bio. Image: Ranch Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation. Donald Judd Art © Judd Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, “Some Aspects of Color In General And Red And Black In Particular,” 1993. In ‘Donald Judd Writings,’ 841.

“To me, it’s not the middle of nowhere; as I said, it’s the center of the world, and it’s basically because I like the land and I like to be here.”—Donald Judd In the summer of 1993, Judd was asked in an interview why he chose to live in the “middle of nowhere in West Texas.” In his response, Judd defended his choice and shared an anecdote from rancher Harold Webb, whose family sold him the complex that would become the Block. When anyone asked Webb what his ranch was good for, since it was so dry, he would respond: “It holds the earth together.” If you took it away, the world would fall apart, all the way down to the other side. Judd then explained why being able to purchase buildings and land for the permanent installation of art was a primary consideration for being in Marfa. He said: “One main reason is that art is something in itself, which seems to be an idea that most people do not realize and acknowledge, especially including the art professionals. And since it’s a thing in itself and has its own integrity, has its own necessity for installation, it can occur anywhere. And it’s important that it be well done and that its installation be well done, and that can happen anywhere where that’s possible. That’s the primary thing for the integrity of the art.” To the top of the façade of the Ranch Office, Judd added “AdeC,” the ranch brand for Ayala de Chinati, and the number 76, referring to the year he purchased his first six sections of land, fifty years ago. The building is permanently installed as he intended, with his wall reliefs and floor works from the early 1990s. The Ranch Office is now open as part of our guided visit program in Marfa. Book a visit today! Link in bio. Image: Ranch Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation. Text: Donald Judd, in ‘Interview with Hans Keller, For the television program Roerend Goed’ Summer 1993. In ‘Donald Judd Interviews,’ 837.

“As you can see, for thirty or forty years, the ideas in my work haven’t changed too much. And that’s what I intended in the first place. I wanted something that would develop naturally without being forced, and it changes on its own or as I go along.”—Donald Judd The Ranch Office is installed permanently with wall reliefs and floor works from the early 1990s that reference works made earlier in Judd’s practice. He made the first floor works of this type in the 1960s; and the first wall relief with a centrally placed embedded object in 1961, followed by a square relief with embedded object in 1962. The works installed in the building illustrate his ongoing concern with space and three-dimensionality through proportionally determined voids and embedded found objects. The return to earlier forms in the development of Judd’s work was described by Dutch critic Carel Blotkamp as resembling a star rather than a line, meaning that Judd built on past ideas and opened them up to new possibilities within his work. On the occasion of Judd’s first solo exhibition in Europe, Blotkamp wrote: “A graphical representation of his development as a sculptor would probably not so much resemble a line as a star, one that slowly extends in all directions. In a sense every work is retrospective, that is, it possesses, apart from autonomous qualities, other characteristics through which it refers to the prime assumptions of his artistic activities: his views on three-dimensional art.” Tomorrow Saturday, April 25, the Ranch Office opens to the public for the first time as part of our guided visit program in Marfa. Join us for a day of free programs, talks, and celebrations. Link in bio. Image: Ranch Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation. Donald Judd Art © Judd Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, ‘Donald Judd’ Interview from the book ‘Inside the Studio,’ March 30, 1993. In ‘Donald Judd Interviews,’ 834. Carel Blotkamp, ‘Judd en de werkelijke materialen’, Vrij Nederland, Amsterdam, 24 January 1970. Translation by Wouter Davidts, in ‘Donald Judd: The Low Countries 1966-1971,’ 30.

“All ideas, seemingly simple and easy, are difficult for people to understand. One of the most difficult is the one of leaving the land alone: leave it alone or return it to its natural state.” —Donald Judd Outlined throughout his writings, Judd continually stated important rules in his life and work, the first being the conservation of land and the preservation of buildings. As an environmentalist and a citizen of Presidio County, Texas, he was especially interested in protecting the Big Bend and the Trans-Pecos regions from development and destruction. Judd was a founding member of the Texas chapter of the Environmental Defense Fund, and a committed member of the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and the Sierra Club. He often hired legal advisors to defend the land of West Texas and its communities from environmental exploitation, such as the dumping of radioactive waste in Sierra Blanca, a community less than two hours west of Marfa. The group ‘Alert Citizens for Environmental Safety (ACES) was a result of this community legal action and in 1993 Judd donated a print to fundraise for its efforts. Pledging works for the establishment and operation of environmental groups was part of Judd’s activism. Similarly, the practice of hosting benefit exhibitions at 101 Spring Street, one of which was ‘Navaho Rugs: Documentary Photography’ (May 14-June 26, 1987) to benefit the organization Indians Resisting Eviction from their Ancestral Lands. Reading was another way in which Judd engaged with the natural world geographically, ecologically, and historically. His library attests to a deep interest in the land and history of West Texas, and the indigenous peoples of the Trans-Pecos region. Explore the titles in the Donald Judd Library. Link in bio. Today we would like to thank all our friends fighting to conserve the Big Bend Region. Judd Foundation invites everyone this Earth Day, to join their local environmental organizations in defense of the land and their communities. Image: Presidio County, Texas. Photo Mark Mahaney © Judd Foundation. Text: Donald Judd, “Art and Architecture,” 1987, in ‘Donald Judd Writings,’ 496.

“What’s minimal about it?”—Donald Judd Judd’s essay ‘Complaints Part I’ was first published in the April 1969 issue of ‘Studio International.’ Written for the magazine, whose cover was also designed by Judd, the essay reads as a defense against generalized art criticism, its reductive attitude, and its falsification of history. In later interviews and essays, Judd would continue to express his rejection of ‘Minimalism’ as the category under which his work was classified. As outlined in ‘Complaints Part I,’ such labels derived from a criticism that ignored the particulars of an artist’s work, the similarities and differences between artists, and the main aspects of visual art at the time, these being: the use of large scale, color, and wholeness. This issue of ‘Studio International,’ included an essay by Barbara Reise, ‘Untitled 1969: a footnote on art and minimal-stylehood.’ Reise, who was in Judd’s opinion one of the only writers engaging in serious opposition to the established notions of criticism, denounced the use of ‘Minimal Art’ as linguistically reprehensible. In the essay she proceeded to defend her thesis by describing the work of Judd, Morris, Flavin, LeWitt, and others, as expressions of specific individuals rather than a group label. Reise wrote: “Their work involves ontological questionings of matter, of the relation between ideas and physical form, of ‘art’ as material object, space or place, or concept. One must think as well as perceive to get the full effects of their work, which unfolds over time in conceptual richness.” Read the full essay by Reise and Judd’s ‘Complaints Part I’ via the full issue on the Studio International website. Discover Judd’s writings, including ‘Complaints’ Part I and II, for free on our website. Link in bio. Image: Cover of ‘Studio International,’ April 1969, Volume 177, Number 910. Cover image specially designed by Donald Judd. © Studio International Foundation. Courtesy Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, Texas.

Judd Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of the expanded and revised second edition of ‘Donald Judd Spaces.’ In conjunction with the release of the publication, Judd Foundation and @mack_publishing are hosting talks with Rainer Judd, Flavin Judd, Ted Barrow, and Amie Corry. The events will take place in May and coincide with the Venice Biennale and Los Angeles Art Book Fair. Learn more on our website. Published in partnership with MACK, ‘Donald Judd Spaces’ presents an unprecedented visual survey of Donald Judd's permanently installed living and working spaces in New York and Texas. This edition includes newly restored spaces, photographed and published for the first time, as well as elevations, and a newly commissioned foreword. ‘Donald Judd Spaces’ ships this June. Pre-order your copy today. Link in bio. In Conversation: Rainer Judd and Amie Corry Friday, May 8 10:00am Scuola Piccola Zattere Venice, Italy In Conversation: Flavin Judd and Ted Barrow With an introduction by Mahfuz Sultan Saturday, May 9 3:00pm Architecture @arch___itecture Los Angeles, CA Image: 'Donald Judd Spaces.' Photo © Adrian Gaut.

“It isn’t necessary for a work to have a lot of things to look at, to compare, to analyze one by one, to contemplate. The thing as a whole, its quality as a whole, is what is interesting. The main things are alone and are more intense, clear, and powerful.” —Donald Judd First established by Judd in 1977, Judd Foundation is guided by the artist’s belief that every individual has the right to pursue their own distinct vision and set of values, generating new ideas and practices as part of a flourishing society. In the latest episode of @thegrandtouristpodcast Rainer Judd and Flavin Judd speak to Dan Rubinstein (@danrubinstein )about the Foundation’s work behind the scenes, their understanding of Judd’s work throughout time, and their childhood at 101 Spring Street in SoHo. Looking forward to Donald Judd’s centennial in 2028, the three discuss the work of the Foundation to further the understanding of Judd’s art, architecture, and design. Touching upon his ideas about wholeness and unity in individuals and art, the conversation revisits the organization’s early days and its resilience with regards to its mission of maintaining the permanently installed spaces in New York and Texas. Read the interview ‘There is Nothing Minimal About the World’ in print on the upcoming spring issue of The Grand Tourist, available as the cover feature this May. Listen to the full episode online. Link in bio. Image: 101 Spring Street, Judd Foundation, New York. Photographs by Jesper Lund ( @jesperdlund ) for The Grand Tourist, Spring 2026, by Dan Rubinstein. Donald Judd Art © 2026 Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, ‘Specific Objects,’1964. In ‘Donald Judd Writings,’ 142.

Judd Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of Donald Judd’s Ranch Office on Saturday, April 25 in Marfa, Texas! Join us for a day of free programs, including open hours, talks, and a tailgate celebration. Opening to the public for the first time, the Ranch Office will be one of eight buildings accessible to visitors as part of Judd Foundation’s guided visit program in Marfa. The building will provide direct experience with Judd’s interest in the land as it relates to his art and architecture: “My work,” Judd wrote in 1983, “has the appearance it has, wrongly called ‘objective’ and ‘impersonal,’ because my first and largest interest is in my relation to the natural world, all of it, all the way out.” The permanently installed wall reliefs and floor works in the space are all made in common Douglas fir plywood, both painted and unpainted, and illustrate Judd’s concern with enclosed space through proportionally determined voids or embedded found objects that emphasize three-dimensionality. The Ranch Office, located on Highland Avenue in downtown Marfa, is one of the last buildings he acquired in town for his work spanning art, architecture, and furniture design. Learn more about the Ranch Office Opening programs on our website. All events are free and open to the public! Ranch Office Opening Saturday, April 25, 1–7pm Marfa, Texas #JuddFoundation #DonaldJudd Image: Ranch Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo © Martien Mulder. Donald Judd Art © Judd Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

“The lit tubes are intense and very definite. They are very much a particular visible state, a phenomenon. The singleness of isolation of phenomena is new to art and highly interesting.”—Donald Judd Judd and Dan Flavin first met in 1962 at a gathering in a Brooklyn apartment organized to discuss the possibility of a cooperative artist-run gallery. Lifelong friends and artists living in New York during the 60s and 70s, Flavin and Judd participated in interviews and panels, and had their work exhibited in multiple shows. The artists also contributed to each other’s catalogues of their retrospectives at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, both curated by Brydon Smith. Judd’s essay ‘Aspects of Flavin’s Work,’ served as the introduction to ‘Fluorescent lights, etc. from Dan Flavin,’ published in 1969. While both their work involved certain elements such as repetition, geometry, and industrial materials, their understanding of color and scale was different. Judd explains this as the difference between color as material and color as light, and scale as related to objects versus phenomena. Flavin would sometimes refer to Judd as a “colorist,” as the two artists shared a deep interest in the relationship between color and space, as well as in the integrity of the installation of their work. The work shown here, ‘alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd),’ is one of three in an edition that Flavin dedicated to Judd. There are sixteen works by Flavin, in three and two dimensions, permanently installed in Judd Foundation spaces, in New York and Texas. Judd also designated six buildings at the Chinati Foundation for the permanent installation of Flavin’s large-scale work in colored fluorescent light. Learn more by visiting the Index of Works on our site. Link in bio. Image: La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation. Art © Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, ‘Aspects of Flavin’s Work,’1969. In ‘Donald Judd Writings,’ 211.

“There is one thing I know how to do very well, and that is to produce a plain, austere piece. It’s a quality that I like, and I get very skeptical about it. But I like to try other things to see what happens to the shape and surface.” —Donald Judd This untitled work from 1965, one of a number of floor pieces with recessed tops made at the time, is the first Judd made entirely of hot-rolled steel. He used this form in the same or similar dimensions in at least four other works, but with different materials: with brown enamel on aluminum in 1968, in brass in 1968 and 1969, and in stainless steel in 1972. Included in Judd’s first major museum exhibition, ‘Don Judd’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1968, the work is permanently installed in the west building of La Mansana de Chinati/The Block in Marfa, Texas. Speaking of the recessed fronts, tops, and sides of forms in his work, Judd said in an interview: “It occurred to me if you took one of the sides and pushed it in, it would open the top surface up. I was always interested in edges and flanges. I was also interested in a certain quality of thinness and edgeness in the paintings. It defines what the boxes are made of by showing the thickness of the sheet metal, and thus becomes less arbitrary, more rigorous, with a more precise knowledge of the thickness of the material. So it shows, or makes, or emphasizes the edge more clearly.” Learn more about the installed works in Judd Foundation spaces by visiting the Index of Works. Link in bio. #DonaldJudd #JuddFoundation Image: La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation. Donald Judd Art © Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Text: Donald Judd, “Don Judd: An Interview with John Coplans” From the exhibition catalogue ‘Don Judd,’1971. In ‘Donald Judd Interviews,’ 358-359.