Photo courtesy: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Two statements by the artist Donald Judd turned out to be remarkably prescient about the ramshackle-beautiful cast-iron building on Spring Street he bought in 1968 for use as his home and studio.
“One threat,” he wrote about the blocks around him — which only then, three years after he moved in, were becoming known as SoHo — “is that some of the attributes of Greenwich Village may develop: tourist shops and restaurants, bad art and high rents.”
In light of how quickly and thoroughly that threat came to pass, the second statement seems like wishful thinking. “I’ve always needed my own work in my own space,” he wrote, adding dramatically, “The brief time of gallery and museum exhibitions would be ultimately fatal if it were not for the permanence of my own installations.” (more…)
