Look, See

In the late 50's through the mid-60's Donald Judd supported himself reviewing exhibits for Arts Magazine and Art International, and continued writing for these and other magazines into the 70's. All of his writings are collected in Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975, The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, originally published in 1975; the edition I have is 2005. In those days a handful of reviewers covered the NY scene, covering it like a beat, and would write a dozen or more reviews each month. For example, in Arts in November 1960 wrote fourteen reviews-- six of those were in the 100-150 word range, five were in the 50-75 word range, and three were long single-sentence reviews.

Judd wrote in an Introduction in 1974 (italics mine):

"The job with Arts provided most of my money until the last year (1965). I wrote criticism as a mercenary and would never have written it otherwise. Since there were no set hours and since I could work at home it was a good part-time job. It took three or four days to see the shows, and perhaps a week or so off and on to write the reviews, which I always put off until the deadline. I can't type. Sigrid Byers, another and later assistant editor, sometimes helped with that. I don't remember the pay and the different reviewing schemes too well. I think I was paid 180 dollars a month for quite a while. The rent on my loft was 100 dollars. The few articles (that he wrote besides reviews) were a great help, especially in the summer (when there were fewer shows to review). In the letter hiring me (Hilton) Kramer gives the rate at the time: "For a review of 300 words the rate is six dollars; for 150 words, four dollars; for a one-sentence review, three dollars." The magazine was always poor; I felt that Kramer and (James) Mellow paid as well as they could. Obviously art critics should be paid much more. That's one of the things seriously wrong with the activity.

According to an editorial of Kramer's in September 1961 the reviews were to become selective. A list for September 1962 that I still have gives 48 shows assigned and seen. Sixteen were reviewed. Forty-eight seems high and may be because (Sydney) Tillim was not reviewing shows that month. Fifteen reviews a month seems to be the average. Evidently before September 1961 all shows were seen and reviewed. The 1962 list indicates that we still saw everything but chose the better ones to write about. I believe that later we didn't see everything.

When I started browsing through The Complete Writings I was struck by the quantity of reviews, and I was especially struck by the briefest reviews where Judd would describe some image, or color scheme, or textures used, and then make a decisive final pronouncement about what was good or bad about the work. He said if he liked something, didn't equivocate if he didn't, and he always had reasons why. Increasingly I found him to be a good and fair writer, concise and clear. He might come across as harsh because he actually makes up his mind and says so. One may not like his opinions, but if you read his writing you begin to know where he is coming from.

The last two chapters of Jed Perls' New Art City convincingly, for me, pairs the unlikely duo of Judd and Fairfield Porter. Both were artists who also wrote about art. They were independently minded, perhaps a little difficult, and looked for art that wasn't more of the same, that had a reason to be. While they might appear to be in opposite corners of the room they each held informed standards of quality in art and expressed surprising insights.

The last ten days I have posted some of Judd's shorter reviews; they are all gathered on a single page. Typically, these shorter reviews are also negative ones, as better art would justify a longer review, but they are quite lucid, saying much in a few words. I thought it would be interesting to pull a few of these out to see what kinds of things Judd would identify as general failings. I think what I gather most from the following excerpts is Judd asking, "What's the point, why bother?"

1. ...technical proficiency and very litle evident purpose.
2. ...slashed and excoriated, for the most part without vigor or even brutality...
3. ...a change from the round patches passively placed to post and lintel patches placed passively...
4. Despite some variation in the color the works have the similarity of being without it.
5. ...the arrangement of the boxes is as thoughtless as the tombstones which they resemble.
6. There's a lot of this in Europe and it's terrible.
7. ...harmonious but abecedarian...
8. I don't see what they see in Da Silva's work.
9. ...the sensation is without reason since there is no large organization to which it is integral...
10. ...some trouble and less virutosity would have improved the show.