Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Untitled (1967 Judd sculpture) (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Donald Judd (progression sculptures). Redirect preserves history for attributation of the new articles reuses this content and directs readers to the correct page. It it would be useful to have this history at the new page let me know, and I will do a history merge. Spartaz Humbug! 22:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Untitled (1967 Judd sculpture)
AfDs for this article: 
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Judd did hundreds of sculptures titled "Untitled" and in the same vein as this one. This particular specimen is not notable on its own, although Judd is highly notable, of course, and the body of work he made is extremely notable and in too many museum collections to count.

To sum up: the series of works is notable, but not this particular specimen. Sources are largely primary, and none discuss the work in depth. The Art21 source simply includes an image of the work; "The Art Story" source has an image of a similar but different work, and is used in the article as background on his practice.

As the last Afd boiled down to a set of arguments that "it's in a collection, so it's notable", I think it is important to point out that that is a criteria for the notability for artists per WP:ARTIST, not individual works. Museum collections in aggregate probably contain millions of works, and they are not all notable individually. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:28, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:28, 22 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per last time - when in fact the Afd boiled down to a set of arguments that "it's in the collection highlights self-selected by a reasonably major collection, so it's notable". As usual, the arguments that we don't want hundreds of such articles (which we don't) have proved alarmist - two years after the 1st afd this is still the only article we have on a Judd work. It's had over 5,000 views in the last 5 years, which isn't too bad. And I certainly take article views into account. When somebody tries to claim a bio getting a steady 300 views a day is non-notable, you know there's a problem with the nom.  Johnbod (talk) 15:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not alarmed at all. In fact if the concensus of this AfD is to keep, I'll take that a s direction and make a few dozen Judd sculpture articles. I love his work, but this article still does not meet our criteria for notability just because it is in a collection. Article views, as always, are not a criteria for keep. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, others were - I don't think you commented last time, did you? To be clear, if there were "a few dozen" such articles, I would probably vote for merging to the bio, or bunching into group articles.  I generally oppose deletion of the many articles in Category:Indianapolis Museum of Art artworks which are our only representative of a particular type of artwork. Johnbod (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete Keep  - This is such an iconic and important work by Judd. It stands apart from so much of his other work as it is in brass and red enamel paint, giving it an element of warmth not often found in his work. It is indeed a notable work. Yes there are different versions of it in several museum collections, but that is not a reason for deletion (it's like a print or multiples series). The article should be kept based on the criteria in the first deletion discussion. This particular early work is a key to the late work. Anecdotally (and I realize anecdotes are not relevant arguments), many years ago I peered down the end of this work and was amazed at the optical effects created by the mathematical permutations of the interiors of the forms of the enclosed and open elements, and how the light interacted with these forms to create perceptual anomalies; years later when visiting the Judd Foundation in Marfa, TX and seeing the 100 boxes in spaces designed/retrofitted by him, it profoundly referenced this specific early piece, in relation to the optical/perceptual qualities and anomalies. Netherzone (talk) 17:20, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I love Judd too, but do you have any sources? There are several that use unique materials, see the list below.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It is featured in "Donald Judd's Aritmetics and Sol LeWitt's Combinatorics. On the Relationship Between Visual and Mathematical in New York Art Around 1960." -- the lead chapter of the book "Imagine Math 3" by Michael Rottmann, Springer Verlag. There is also an essay by Anna Chave (not the famed scathing critique of Minimalism, but a different essay) I think it was with another author. I will see if I can find anything more substantial. I do think it's important to have an article on at least one of his individual works. My main complaint with this article is that the image sucks - I tried to retouch it and upload the color corrected version to WPCommons, but it seemed to revert to the present image. Not sure if I am doing something incorrectly on Commons. Netherzone (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment doing some more digging on these works, I have found that they were typically produced in editions of three. Here are nine pieces that are basically identical in form, in different colors.:
 * 1979 version in red
 * 1979 version in purple
 * 1979 version Galvanized steel and anodized aluminum at NY MoMA
 * Blue and galvanized steel version at Chinati foundation
 * same piece but in different colors and titled “progression”, in the National Galleries of Scotland
 * 1976, in Clear anodized and chartreuse anodized aluminum, at Guggenheim Venice
 * [https://www.phillips.com/detail/donald-judd/NY010718/33 same piece in brass and blue anodized aluminum, 1970 (edition of 3)
 * same piece in clear anodized and purple anodized aluminum, via Christies auctions. Edition of three.
 * same thing near bottom of page, in what appears to be aluminum or stainless, titled "Progression” 1969
 * Many are in museum collections... shall we have an article for each? There is no in-depth coverage of the piece described in the article, and as you can see, it is not particularly unique. Several of the image descriptions mention the work as "one of an edition of three". That is common among the big shot artists, but the lack of coverage, and the fact that it's one of an edition, of which there are many variants, tends to say it's not notable on its own. I'd be happy to rename the article Donald Judd (progressions series) or Donald Judd (progression sculptures), if that interests anyone. There seem to be many Google books mentions of this "class" of Judd sculptures, and the current example could illustrate it. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Previous project discussions have established that, at least normally, an article on a work from an edition, should potentially cover the whole edition - ie we don't want multiple articles on multiple casts etc - see The Thinker etc. By the same token, if works can reasonably be corralled into a "series", they should be. This has been done with the main Monet series for example. Johnbod (talk) 21:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * What about this: Draft:Donald_Judd_(progression_scuptures)? It does seem to be a class of sculptures mentioned numerous sources. I had no trouble fining wide mention of his "progressions works".ThatMontrealIP (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think I'm fine with this (when tidied). Much better than the deletion the nom sought anyway. I hope at least one source actually uses "progression_scuptures/series"? Johnbod (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am fine with this. Wanted to mention tho that Ref #8 has a citation error note. Will change my !vote once this draft gets moved to article space. Netherzone (talk) 21:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC) I corrected the reference in the draft. Netherzone (talk) 21:53, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * the Chinati foundation had a big show where the blurb says "the Chinati Foundation will offer an open viewing of Donald Judd’s horizontal wall works (commonly called “progressions”. Other sources say something similar. It might be better in the long run to call it Donald Judd (progression works), as there are many more.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, here we are:Donald Judd (progression sculptures). Now I am off to do some paid work elsewhere!ThatMontrealIP (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. Assuming the new one sticks I'm happy to delete the old one, but please improve the categories, esp adding the Indianapolis Museum of Art one, or they may freak out. Johnbod (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've modified my !vote above to D. Great idea to create a new and more comprehensive article for the series of works of which this is one Netherzone (talk) 23:04, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, this article actually says something encyclopedic! Thanks for your input and thanks Johnbod. Next up: Donald Judd (stack sculptures).ThatMontrealIP (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Question. ,, Should we move this article in order to preserve its edit history to the new topic on the series of works? I am not sure deletion is the best choice here when a page move might be a better starting point.4meter4 (talk) 15:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Possibly - I never know these things - Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oops Johnbod (talk) 15:35, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The new article already exists, so that would presumably overwrite its history. Relevant items in this page have been included in the new one, as far as I can recall.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec x2) @Johnbod: There's a couple ways to preserve the page history. One is to move the page to the new title, but if the new article is going to be about a series or set of works, it might be better to create a new page and copy the material on each piece in the set/series into that page, leaving redirects at the old pages. If this does not answer your question, please ping me again, as I won't be watching this page. — Diannaa (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to merge the history, or link this discussion to the new article? Netherzone (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * that would be a question for an admin. Ideally, we would have simply moved this article and then begun the process of a re-write. However, since a beautiful article has already been made, that ship has sailed. Regardless, I see no reason to keep this article now that the information is housed elsewhere. I vote delete but if there is a way to merge article histories I think that would be good. If not it's not the end of the world.4meter4 (talk) 15:50, 1 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.