Donald Judd by Sarah Lee

by SeungYeon Sarah Lee, RISD '13

    This piece is the Final Project for my Spatial Dynamics(3D) Class from last spring. (Spring, 2010) We were assigned to choose an artist's work and imitate his/her work so that one would not know the difference between the real piece and ours. My artist was Donald Judd.

   I have never heard of Donald Judd before I did this project. I was in the Fleet Library, researching on modern artists, when I came across his book. He is a minimalist artist who wished to create a democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. He was not only an artist, but also worked with furniture and architecture in his later days. His most known works are...

Knowing that it would be impossible to finish all those squares in a week, I decided to make something very simple. I settled with this piece...

From the Book (Bad Quality)

Closer to actual colors

    This work is Untitled, made from Wood (the orange sections, and the inside of the purple section), Tinted Plexiglass (purple section - reflective, creates an illusion from a straight view). I figured it would be easy because as you can see, it is just a cut-out cube. However, little did I know of minimalism. The simpler it looks, the harder it is. It required a tremendous amount of  exactness, craftsmanship, patience, time, effort, and money. Once I bought all the materials, it was too late to pick another work, and I had to stick with this one. 

    I decided that instead of using wood for the whole cube, it would be better to use foam core because it was cheaper, and was easier for me to carry down the notorious hills of the freshmen quad to What Cheer Studios for the Critique. 

Foam core base, before it is colored

Then I would use wood and plexiglass for the purple section of the piece. I even had to ask a friend from the Industrial Design Department to help me cut the wood and the plexiglass. After cutting everything into the right sizes, I started coloring them(acrylic paint for the foam core base, and Watercolor for the wood). Then I glued them all together, and ta-daa! 

In My Dorm Lounge

Different reflections with different angles (Critique at What Cheers Studios)

Comparing my work to the picture in the book

    Although I explained the process very simply, there were many trials and errors along the way that made it harder than it seems. As a person who never really appreciated minimalism before this project, I know how simplistic art looks easy, and not so special. People think 'I can do that, it's just a sliced cube.' However, if I had learned anything from this final project, it would be that behind simplicity, there is reason, thought, speculation, time, work put into it. And I now very much enjoy and recognize minimalism.

    Overall, this Spatial Dynamics course with Gareth Jones(great professor, artist, mentor & philosopher) was very helpful to my development as an artist. I honestly learned so much from this class while enjoying the work without even knowing it. I would never have imagined myself saying that 'I enjoyed working,' but I really did during the spring semester. It was partially because there was a freedom that I can choose what I wanted to do, (there was not much limit to projects for Gareth) but I believe it was more because I grew to love art more that I did in the first semester of Freshmen year. First semester of Freshmen year, the overwhelming work and due dates just crushed down on me that I did not even had a moment to love it, but as I got used to the sleep-depriving workload at RISD, I slowly got to appreciate the opportunity to do what I really love to do : ART.




materials: foam core, wood, plexiglass, acrylic paint, watercolor paint,