Marfa: Judd Foundation

NOTE: I'll be updating the post below this one all day, probably.

Last week I wrote that visiting Marfa is imperative if you want to understand Donald Judd's work. One part of a Marfa visit is the Chinati Foundation, the other is visiting the less-well-known Judd Foundation. I have no idea how to write about the Judd Foundation properties -- two weeks after getting back I'm still processing all I saw.

Judd owned a lot of Marfa. He did not own all of downtown, but he owned chunks of it (and the Judd and Chinati Foundations still do). The Judd Foundation still owns The Block, the entire city block that Judd controlled between Highway 90 and the railroad tracks (in the center of the image -- look for the two white rectangles), and several buildings downtown, including the Marfa National Bank.

The Block is made up of several buildings the US Army abandoned in 1923 as well as a couple residences that Judd purchased. Judd lived here, installed art here, and kept what is probably the largest art library in West Texas here. All of it is more-or-less as he left it. The work is remarkably well-preserved, perhaps because not too many visitors go through, and perhaps because of the arid climate.

The highlight of the Judd Foundation property -- and one of the most remarkable art places in America -- is Judd's studio. He didn't work here for very long, but it's full of hints as to his process and working methods. It's walk-through biography.

At the Marfa National Bank: Judd kept a series of offices upstairs. He devoted one office to one project, all along the second floor of the building. Much of the furniture in the bank is of Judd's design, but many pieces from of his design and art collection are installed as well.

In one of the residences and another building in The Block: Judd's early paintings. Most are flat horrid, full of Avery, Kandinsky and biomorphic abstraction. Sometimes all at once. But one painting, from 1961, anticipates Robert Mangold in the most remarkable way.

Why a Judd biography hasn't been written: One reason is that the archival materials owned by the family and the Foundations is sitll being catalogued. An early stage project won an NEA grant, but it will cost many millions more to put the materials together in a way that is useful to scholars. Some of the material is scattered -- in an organized, Judd-ian way -- throughout the Marfa National Bank building.

Show idea: I think I've suggested this before, but what about a show of the impact of military service on 20th century American art? Judd served in the Army in 1946-47.

Some things Judd owned: Early Navajo tapestries, silver and turquoise jewelry, prints/etchings of Daumiers, Goyas and Rembrandts, lots of Albers, kimonos, furniture by Breuer, Mies, and Rietveld, a Morandi-esque abstract painting by Antonio Calderara.