Working Papers. An exhibition of 33 drawings by Judd covering nearly the entire period he made three-dimensional work - after 1964 using an increasingly radical type of delegated fabrication. The show is curated by Peter Ballantine, who since 1969 has specialised in almost all aspects of the artist's work.
Curated by Peter Ballantine
Sprüth Magers London is pleased to announce the exhibition of 33 drawings by Donald Judd (1928-94), covering
nearly the entire period he made three-dimensional work - after 1964 using an increasingly radical type of
delegated fabrication. The show is curated by Peter Ballantine, who since 1969 has specialised in almost all
aspects of the artist's work.
All 33 of the drawings on display have some connection to Judd's objects. In the earliest ones he is still
working out (or rejecting) sculptural ideas he would make himself. Later drawings are Judd's part of the
fabrication process, a script or score-like relationship to the work's subsequent 'performance' by others -
simultaneously the original of the work and not comparable to the real thing at all. For context (and
comparison), the exhibition includes a group of previously unavailable fabricator's shop drawings.
The largest (and most formal) drawings in the show were made after the actual works the drawings
document had already been completed, a kind of guarded-but-quietly-charged 'portraiture.'
Several elements are more 'available' in Judd's drawings than in any of his other work. There is the rare
opportunity to see his 'hand' and signature, both otherwise deliberately absent from the objects, for reasons
vital to maintaining the hard-fought position he had achieved against symbolic expression. There is also a
privileged view into the delicate navigation Judd makes between depiction and anti-depiction - the subtle and
not so subtle ways he sabotages pictorial representation while communicating enough (usually pictorial)
information to make (or in other cases to record) the object.
The gallery will publish an exhibition catalogue with colour illustrations and a short essay.
Peter Ballantine will give a talk about the issues of Judd drawing and fabrication at the Courtauld Institute of
Art’s Kenneth Clark lecture theatre on Friday, 17 February at 7pm.
Image: Untitled , 1983
Pencil on yellow paper
36,8 x 57 cm
Opening Reception: Jan 12, 2012, 6-8pm
Spruth Magers
7A Grafton Street - London
Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
Admission Free