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Lot Essay
Despite disavowing the term ‘minimalism’, artist Donald Judd’s work sought to define autonomy for the constructed object and the space created by it, eliminating notions of hierarchy to instead offer a universal, democratic presentation. Prolific as both artist and as conceptual theorist, it was inevitable that Judd should in due course turn to appraise the purpose, presence and resonance of furniture, design and architecture within the contexts of the built environment. Writing in 1993, Judd observed:
The configuration and the scale of art cannot be transposed into furniture and architecture. The intent of art is different from that of the latter, which must be functional. If a chair or a building is not functional, if it appears to be only art, it is ridiculous. The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness and scale as a chair...A work of art exists as itself; a chair exists as a chair itself..
Judd created his first designs for furniture, which included chairs, desks, tables and shelves, in 1973. The earliest examples were executed from rough-hewn pine, which through time, care, experimentation and access evolved into the precise calibrations of scale, depth, proportion and substance that characterizes the conceptually resolved structures of the 1980s. The present lot, comprising of three elements – desk, two chairs – offers a suggestion of contained purpose, an expectation of presence, that is by turn silenced by precision inertia of the aligned components.
The configuration and the scale of art cannot be transposed into furniture and architecture. The intent of art is different from that of the latter, which must be functional. If a chair or a building is not functional, if it appears to be only art, it is ridiculous. The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness and scale as a chair...A work of art exists as itself; a chair exists as a chair itself..
Judd created his first designs for furniture, which included chairs, desks, tables and shelves, in 1973. The earliest examples were executed from rough-hewn pine, which through time, care, experimentation and access evolved into the precise calibrations of scale, depth, proportion and substance that characterizes the conceptually resolved structures of the 1980s. The present lot, comprising of three elements – desk, two chairs – offers a suggestion of contained purpose, an expectation of presence, that is by turn silenced by precision inertia of the aligned components.