Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or p — Donald Judd

"Usually when someone says a thing is too simple theyre saying that certain familiar things arent there, and theyre seeing a couple maybe that are left... But actually there may be... several new things to which they arent paying attention. These may be quite complex... They may [also] be read all at once. This is important to most of the best work going on now. It has to have a wholeness to it that previous work didnt have, but still, within that, its not all as simple as [people] say."

"At that second exhibition I had to peer into them and look through the grayed color and wonder what it would be like not gray and then wonder what the forms would be like not crabbed by the figures and trees."

"ARTS is a somewhat conservative magazine but it is not uniformly, simply or blindly conservative, and the several conservative writers vary. And I am certainly not a conservative and neither is Miss Harrison. I decidedly disagree with the basic positions of Mr. Kramer, Miss Raynor and Mr. Tillim, though not with some of their evaluations, both of conservative and nonconservative artists. I think Ben Johnsons paintings, for example, are relatively uninteresting and powerless and that the work of some of the dop artists is full of true emotion.uninteresting and powerless and that the work of some of the dop artists is full of true emotion. The conservatism of Mr. Kramer and Mr. Mellow as successive editors lies only in the publication of more articles on conservative artists than on unconservative ones. Neither editors ever suggested to me that the magazine should have a uniform position or attempt to control my reviews, which are often contrary to Mr. Kramer’s opinions."

"In any art there are a lot of technical things that you can get to like. Building is just skilled labor, I suppose. Its a lot of work. I dont mind other people building them, but the way things go together and are made is interesting to me; I like that a lot. I pay a lot of attention to how things are done and the whole activity of building something is interesting."

"Obviously everyone is going to prefer kinds of art. I prefer art that isnt associated with anything and am tired of the various kinds of dada, and dont think, for example, that the work of Johns and Rauschenberg is so momentous. But its good and Im not at all inclined to rank them below every last abstract artist. And I know that their work has connections to so-called abstract work. (I dont like the word abstract.) Or, I think American art is far better than that anywhere else but I dont think that situation is desirable. ** Donald Judd, in: Studio International, vol. 177, p. 182: As quoted in: James Meyer (2000) Minimalism. Vol 60 - 83, p. 245"

"Four years ago almost all of the applauded and selling art was New York School painting. It was preponderant in most galleries, which were uninclined to show anything new. The publications which praised it praised it indiscriminately and were uninterested in new developments. Much of the painting was by the "second generation" many of them epigones. Pollock was dead. Kline and Brooks had painted their last good paintings in 1956 and 1957. Gustons paintings had become soft and gray — his best ones are those around 1954 and 1955. Motherwells and De Koonings paintings were somewhat vague. None of these artists were criticized. In 1959 Newmans work was all right, and Rothkos was even better than before. Presumably, though none were shown in New York, Clyfford Stills paintings were all right. This lackadaisical situation was thought perfect. The lesser lights and some of their admirers were incongruously dogmatic : this painting was not only doing well but was the only art for the time. They thought it was a style. By now, it is."