Untitled, 1973 (Primary Title)

Jud Fine, American, born 1944 (Artist)

1973
American
Polyester and photograph
Overall (each rod): 105 × 2 in. (266.7 × 5.08 cm)
Overall (photograph): 15 7/8 × 18 3/8 in. (40.32 × 46.67 cm)
74.53a-d
Not on view

The idea of much of my work is to make a really clear statement about the near-impossibility of making clear statements. —Jud Fine

Fine’s art often uses contradiction and wit to challenge perception and create constructive confusion. Like otherartists coming of age just after the heyday of Minimalist art, he combined conceptual methods with more intuitive approaches and natural materials. Here three bamboo-like poles made of polyester lean against the wall and seem to reappear in the photograph of a triangle, but the poles in the photograph differ in color, material, and configuration. Fine said he made the “mistake” obvious so viewers would immediately understand the joke and go on to study the cerebral beauty of the materials. In addition to being inconsistent in material and color, the work creates an uncertain relationship to sculpture, painting, and photography.

Sydney and Frances Lewis Contemporary Art Fund
Contemporary Sculpture from the VMFA Collection, Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, March 21 – May 24, 1992; Piedmont Fine Arts Center, Martinsville, VA

Perspectives on the Permanent Collection: Contemporary Sculpture in the Collection of the VMFA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, June 25 – August 11, 1991

Art of the Seventies, Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Danville, VA, February 25 – March 15, 1982; Walter Cecil Rawls Museum and Library, Courtland, VA, September 15 – October 14, 1982

Contemporary Art Acquisitions from Sydney & Frances Lewis, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, January 16 – March 4, 1979

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY, September 20 – November 17, 1973

Riko Mizuno Gallery, New York, NY, 1973
(Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York) by 1973; Purchased by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Richmond, Virginia in December of 1973. [1]

[1] Accessioned in January of 1974. See VMFA Curatorial file.
© Jud Fine

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