Donald Judd
The Metal Furniture

18 May - 26 July 2002

In cooperation with the Judd Foundation, A/D will be making the first New York exhibition of Donald Judd's metal furniture since 1984. For the very first time, the furniture will be installed in situ, and treated as furniture, not as decorous, spotlit art object: there will be books on the bookshelf, papers on the desk and pillows on the bed.

In 1970, Judd made an aluminum coffee table, a failed piece of furniture according to the artist, who destroyed one of the two prototypes, and never made the planned edition. He did begin soo after to design wooden furniture however. Fourteen years later, when he was having metal sculpture made at Lehni AG in Dübendorf, Switzerland, he designed a series of modular--a stool gains a back to become a chair; a second panel makes it into a corner chair--aluminum furniture.

To quote Judd's essay in the 1984 exhibition catalogue:

Their [Lehni's] business is mainly that of making metal furniture, itself practical and handsome, without affectation, which is present in almost all furniture, including that which is usually said to be "well designed". Their furniture does not symbolize the past, the future, the rich or the rustic. The workmanship of the factory is very good, which is rare. Industrial technique far from guarantees care. The attitude and capacity of the factory, the old metal table and the new ideas of the wooden furniture quickly and naturally suggested the possibility of metal furniture. Today there are fifteen pieces of furniture, each piece available in fifteen different colors.

The metal furniture, less familiar than his wooden designs, look particularly fresh and new in 2002. The perfectly progressing geometric volumes, in mint green and lacquer red and sea blue, are at once formal and cheerful.




Quoted text @ Judd Foundation, 2002.