Installation view, “Donald Judd,” David Zwirner, New York, 2011 (Judd Art © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photos by Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART)
David Zwirner
525/533 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Saturday, June 25, free
212-727-2070
www.davidzwirner.com
www.juddfoundation.org
In 1989, Donald Judd presented a major installation at the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Baden-Baden of a dozen large-scale open-box floor works that featured color, a rarity for Judd in pieces that size. David Zwirner has gathered together nine of the works and spread them throughout his connected galleries at 525 and 533 West Nineteenth St., along with several of the minimalist artist’s pencil and ballpoint sketches of the original layout. Each of the nine untitled Menziken boxes are an identical 39.375 x 78.75 x 78.75, composed of anodized aluminum, with different-colored Plexiglas panels inside. The black, blue, and amber sheets, not all placed in the same locations within each box, react with the brightness from the ceiling skylights to project changing reflections against the inner sides of the rectangle boxes, as if they’re alive. Thus, Judd has reshaped the space inside and outside, within each individual box as well as of the gallery space itself, in a quiet yet dynamic presentation. The show concludes June 25 with a pair of special screenings held at 519 West Nineteenth St., where, from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm, Zwirner will show Michael Blackwood’s 2010 documentary The Artist’s Studio: Donald Judd, consisting of footage of Judd (1928-94) from his homes in SoHo in 1972 and in Marfa, Texas, in 1975. That will be followed at 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 by the 2010 film Marfa Voices, in which director Rainer Judd, the artist’s daughter, speaks with people who knew her father in Marfa. An advance RSVP to mackie@davidzwirner.com or 212-727-2070 ext122 is required for Marfa Voices, which will be introduced by the filmmaker and followed by a Q&A; a reception will follow the 5:00 screening.
In 1961, Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin wrote, “I’d like to thank the guy / who wrote the song / that made my baby / fall in love with me.” The title of that be-bop song, “Who Put the Bomp,” inspired one of music’s first fanzines and later the punk record label Bomp! Records. In their 1999 song “Deceptacon,” the riot grrrl group Le Tigre flipped that question around, asking, “Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp? / Who took the ram from the ramalamadingdong?” In the song they also dare, “Let me hear you depoliticise my rhyme.” Formed in 1998 by former Bikini Kill leader Kathleen Hanna, zine writer Johanna Fateman, and visual artist Sadie Benning, who was replaced in 2000 by DJ and projectionist JD Samson, Le Tigre challenged the male-dominated world of rock and punk, championing individuality and sexual freedom while redefining gender roles. In 2004, Hanna, Fateman, and Samson set out on a world tour in support of their third and final album, This Island, and asked their lighting designer, Carmine Covelli, to capture it all on film. The result is the engaging Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, in which Covelli and director Kerthy Fix go onstage, backstage, and behind the scenes as the influential trio heads across four continents and ten countries, playing exciting live shows, meeting the media, taking pictures with Slipknot, revealing what they pack in their luggage, exercising in the gym, and talking about facial hair. They also discuss more serious issues such as gender identity, lesbianism, and their DIY mentality, which flew in the face of the music industry. The seventy-two-minute film, which features live multimedia performances of such songs as “Hot Topic,” “Keep on Livin’,” “Viz,” and “Deceptacon,” is screening on June 7 at 7:30 as part of the Maysles Institute’s monthly “Under the Influence of” series and will be followed by a Q&A with Fix, Hanna, and Fateman.