The art is in the box, the mystery of the geometry and transparency. It is made of aluminum and Plexiglas, sometimes wood texture, seems to hold the secrets of the planet and the history of forms. Why is it there? Why is it beautiful? Why is this both similar and different, as a variation of a palette very codified? This could be the monolith perfect for a group of monkeys discovers, at the dawn of humanity, in 2001 , a space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick (1968). Long, pale and red as a colonist landed on the Mayflower , Flavin Judd, son of Donald Judd and the artistic director of the Judd Foundation, explains the legacy of this artist’s minimalism american, who disappeared in February 1994 at 65 years old. «Don wanted to create an art of the present, against the time and against the story, as a film that reveals all its plans at once, fast and immediate, there is no need of translation, of language, of explanations,» he said in an intimate and curator of the exhibition «Donald Judd,» which just opened at the galerie Ropac Marais, the first in France for almost twenty years.
«This is for [Donald Judd] a direct line that leads to a art clear-to-clear thinking and a moral stance and policy clear and, finally, a way to live,» he wrote in the preamble of this parisian exhibition, which seals the collaboration, in Europe, the gallery RopJac with the Estate («estate») of Donald Judd and the Donald Judd Foundation. During the dinner opening at galerie Ropac Pantin (from 25 minute taxi ride between the two places), Thaddaeus Ropac has taken over this phrase in his praise of this artist, half-engineer, half-philosopher. The dinner was part of the exhibition «Monumental Minimal» (extended by two weeks until April 27).
Judd and his peers
to listen To it, the gratin of museums. Bernard Blistène, director, Musée national d’art moderne at the centre Pompidou. Fabrice Hergott, director of the Museum of modern art of the City of Paris. The Flemish Chris Dercon, former director of the Tate Modern in London, and now president of the RMN-Grand Palais in charge of construction at 466 million euros. Young talent confirmed the item The art historian Béatrice Gross, curator of the exhibition of the Wall Drawings of Sol LeWitt at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in 2012. And Manuel Cirauqui, writer and curator of the Guggenheim Bilbao, where he has exhibited «Henri Michaux» and «Anni Albers». In short, a good concentration of neurons.
«The work of Donald Judd, which he called «Specific Objects» rather than sculptures, was almost exclusively based on the geometric shape of the box, » says Philippe Vergne, former director of MoCA in Los Angeles, currently director of the Serralves Museum in Porto. He explored, either individually or in a series of modules that are installed on the wall or on the floor. He devoted himself to the use of industrial materials such as steel, aluminum, Plexiglas, plywood, concrete.» Donald Judd, who admired deeply Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich, thought, and hard as iron to the creation of a space, as solid a work.
Donald Judd Galerie Ropac Marais, 7 rue Debelleyme (Iii). Tel.: 01 42 72 99 00. Opening hours: mar. the sam., from 10 am to 19 h. Until 15 June.