Texas Architect July/Aug 2008: Regional Response

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B o o k R e v i e w

Judd’s Legacy in Print A new book documents the artist’s enigmatic work in Marfa b y L a w r e n c e C o n n o ll y , AIA

In his foreword of Urs Peter Flückiger’s Donald Judd: Architecture in Marfa, Texas, the eminent architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson describes Judd’s Marfa work as overwhelming both in scale and quality. For Wilson, it speaks volumes about the nature of art that one would find Judd’s enigmatic pieces in such an isolated place. Wilson recalls the observation of the French artist Jean Dubuffet many years ago: “True art is always to be found where one least expects it, there where no one is thinking of it, or mentioning its name.” Because Judd’s work is in such a remote part of West Texas, it easily qualifies as being in such an unexpected place. Or at least it used to be. That was truer back in the early 1970s than it is today. Marfa now enjoys a similar demographic to the artists’ mecca of Taos, with Judd’s work as the

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