Bringing my toddler to the Donald Judd retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art when it opened last winter forced me to recognize the ways Judd’s objects resemble playground equipment: the diagonal ladder of red-painted wood with its single purple rod, or the red-enameled iron tube that slyly evoked (at least to my toddler-adjacent eyes) an empty kiddie pool. When we visited shortly after the show opened in February, my daughter wanted to climb on all the objects— or up them, or through them, or over them. The objects. I had trained myself not to call them sculptures, because Judd himself hadn’t thought of them that way. And neither did my toddler! She wanted to crawl through the silver aluminum boxes lined with blue Plexiglas, to bang her tiny fists against a green-lacquered galvanized- iron slab. The one thing she didn’t want to do was stay in her stroller.
Eternally intimidated by the stark, imposing presence of Judd’s pieces, I was surprised to discover their fragility—that they are easily damaged, and have often been poorly protected. In an essay about Judd’s vexed relationship with museums that appears in the exhibition catalog, Ann Temkin, the show’s curator, writes:
Once his works entered the public realm, their flat tops and boxlike forms were often read as invitations to rest an elbow or set down a purse. Their rectilinear structures tempted children and adults alike, whether to squish their bodies between elements of a wall progression, climb inside a channel piece, or crouch beneath a single stack. Unbeknownst to most visitors, the surfaces of the materials they were touching—Plexiglas, aluminum, galvanized iron—were as fragile as parchment and often irreparable.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
A Brief History of Yuval Noah Harari - How the scholar became Silicon Valley's favorite guru
"About 14 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being." So begins Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), by the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, and so began one of the 21st century's most astonishing academic careers. Sapiens has sold more than 25 million copies in various languages. Since then, Harari has published several other books, which have also sold millions. He now employs some 15 people to organize his affairs and promote his ideas.
Boat Fish Don't Count
The wild, obsessive, dangerous pursuit of Montauk's biggest striped bass
The Anti-Rock Star
Leonard Cohen's battle against shameless male egoism
Rachel Kushner's Surprising Swerve
She and her narrators have always relied on swagger-but not this time.
Men on Trips Eating Food
Why TV is full of late-career Hollywood guys at restaurants
You Think You're So Heterodox
Joe Rogan has turned Austin into a haven for manosphere influencers, just-asking-questions tech bros, and other \"free thinkers\" who happen to all think alike.
What Abortion Bans Do to Doctors
In Idaho and other states, draconian laws are forcing physicians to ignore their training and put patients' lives at risk.
THE LOYALIST KASH PATEL WILL DO EXACTLY WHAT TRUMP WANTS.
A 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, he joined the administration in 2019 and rose rapidly. Each new title set off new alarms.
THE RADICAL CONVERSION OF MIKE LEE
IN 2016, HE TRIED TO STOP TRUMP FROM BECOMING PRESIDENT. BY 2020, HE WAS TRYING TO HELP TRUMP OVERTURN THE ELECTION. NOW HE COULD BECOME TRUMP'S ATTORNEY GENERAL.
HYPOCRISY, SPINELESSNESS, AND THE TRIUMPH OF DONALD TRUMP
He said Republican politicians would be easy to break. He was right.