Judd | Marfa

Donald Judd was one of the most decisive figures of twentieth-century art; an artist whose rigorous thinking reshaped the conditions under which art is made and experienced. Emerging from painting in the early 1960s, Judd developed three-dimensional works that rejected illusion and hierarchy, insisting instead on clarity, material presence and spatial integrity.

Beyond form, he was equally concerned with context: how, where and for how long a work should exist. His writings, architectural projects and advocacy for permanent installations reveal an artist for whom art could never be separated from its environment.

The Watari-Um’s ‘Judd | Marfa’ traces its protagonist’s radical vision through the lens of his life and work in Marfa, Texas. After leaving New York in the 1970s, Judd transformed former military and industrial buildings in the remote desert town into sites for the permanent installation of his own work and that of artists including Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain. These spaces, later formalised through the Chinati Foundation, remain preserved as Judd intended.

The exhibition brings together early paintings from the 1950s, key three-dimensional works from the 1960s to the 1990s, and extensive archival materials (drawings, plans, videos and documents) that illuminate Judd’s conception of Marfa as a total environment for art, architecture and living.

A special section revisits The Sculpture of Donald Judd (1978), organised by museum founder Shizuko Watari, underscoring the museum’s long-standing engagement with Judd’s legacy. Together, these materials articulate Judd’s enduring conviction that the installation of art is inseparable from its meaning.