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Robert Smithson

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Donald Judd has set up a "company", that extends the techniques of abstract art into unheard-of places. He may go to Long Island City, and have tinsmiths, the Bernstein Brothers, put "Pittsburg" seams into some (Bethcum) iron boxes, or he might go down to Allied Plastics in Lower Manhattan and have cut-to-size some Rohm-Haas "glowing" pink plexiglass. Judd is always on the lookout for new finishes, like Lavax Wrinkle Finish, which a company pamphlet says, "combines beauty and great durability". Judd likes that combination, and so he might "self" spray one of his fabricated "boxes" with it. Or maybe he will travel to Hackensack, New Jersey to check out a lead he got on a new kind of zinc based paint called Galvanox, which is comparable to "hot-dip" galvanizing. These procedures tend to baffle art-lovers. They either wonder where the "art" went or where the "work" went, or both. It is hard for them to comprehend that Judd is busy extending art into new mediums. This [[illegible strikethrough]] new approach to technique has nothing to do with sentimental notions about "labor". There is no subjective craftsmanship. Judd is not a specialist in a certain kind of labor, but a whole artist engaged in a municipality of techniques. [[strikethrough]]His esthetic position is awesome and original. [[/strikethrough]]

In 1963, Judd had an exhibition at the Green Gallery of plywood and aluminum structures. They disclosed an awareness of physical "mass" in the form of regular intervals of bulk. The intrinsic virtue of "primary matter" was also very much in evidence. Each work offered a different solution for the [[strikethrough]] confinement [[/strikethrough]] dislocation of space. One wooden box (19 1/2" X 45" X 30 1/2"),for example, contained a series of recessed slats, exposed only by a slight concave [[strikethrough]] valley [[/strikethrough]] opening on top of the box. This [[strikethrough]] valley [[/strikethrough]] opening took up only about 20% of the top surface. The slats were