While an artist and architect first, the works of furniture created by Donald Judd have endured as much as his other art, proving the assertion that the man was a shape shifter of sorts, capable of creating that which is meant to inspire and give pause through his art, but also adept at building key pieces that seamlessly, effortlessly serve a purpose in the everyday of human routine: furniture.
The exhibition, entitled “Specific Furniture,” is just that. Specific. There is no mistaking these pieces in for anything else. Moreover, the design and functional simplicity of his furniture remain relevant and desirable in today’s world of design.
Judd originally set to work on these very pieces out of necessity back in the 1970s, upon purchasing a large building in New York City and needing to outfit the space with furnishings. There is beauty in that, isn’t there? How often are we told from pain, from love, from suffering, comes art. But perhaps from necessity, too: art.
// ”Donald Judd: Specific Furniture” is on display at SFMOMA until November 4th. Tickets available here. 151 3rd St, SoMa. Photography by Katherine Du Tiel and courtesy of the Judd Foundation.
