Qatar Museums presents the largest museum exhibition outside of the United States—and the first in-depth presentation worldwide in nearly two decades—of the work of the closely linked American artists Dan Flavin (1933–1996) and Donald Judd (1928–1994). The exhibition is also the first major presentation of Flavin and Judd’s works in the MENA region.
Dan Flavin and Donald Judd were considered two of the founders of minimalism, the widely influential art movement that broke free from traditional notions of painting and sculpture to focus on experiencing real space and materials. Flavin and Judd met in 1962 in New York, and quickly became central figures among a cohort of artists including Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Yayoi Kusama, Sol Lewitt, Claes Oldenburg, and Frank Stella, who were charting the new terrain between painting and sculpture.
Dan Flavin | Donald Judd: Doha is organised by Qatar Museums in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and is curated by Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg, Director, and Jennifer King, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, of LACMA.
The exhibition is part of Qatar Creates, the year-round national cultural movement that curates, promotes, and celebrates the diversity of cultural activities in Qatar and connects residents and global audiences with Qatar’s creative industries.
Featuring 34 works by Flavin and 25 works by Judd, Dan Flavin | Donald Judd: Doha focuses on the artists’ shared engagement with material, colour, and form. Spanning the 1960s through the 1990s, the exhibition will highlight works from the collection of Qatar Museums, as well as important loans from other museums, private collections, the Dan Flavin Estate, and the Judd Foundation.
The exhibition is organised with works by both the artists installed in the three central galleries, demonstrating their intersecting concerns and practices. The galleries flanking this central section are dedicated separately to each artist. Highlights of Dan Flavin | Donald Judd: Doha include:
- Flavin’s early lightwork the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), 1963, inspired by the Constantin Brancusi sculpture Endless Column
- Works from Flavin’s “monument” for V. Tatlin series using cool white florescent lights of different lengths in varying arrangements.
- A number of the works that were shown in the landmark exhibition dan flavin: fluorescent light in 1964 at New York’s Green Gallery
- A large-scale installation by Flavin, alternating pink and “gold,” 1976
- A landmark Judd work, untitled, 1964, that marks the artist’s transition between painting and sculpture.
- A group of metal progression works intended to be shown in buildings Judd designed, but never completed, in Marfa, Texas at the Chinati Foundation, which have never been exhibited as a group outside Marfa
- Judd’s vertical stack works, one in galvanized iron and one brass and green plexiglass, each demonstrating his mastery of material and colour
- Judd’s untitled, 1986, the artist’s largest wall work in plywood and plexiglass comprised of thirty units.
The exhibition is a legacy project of the 2021 Year of Culture between Qatar and the United States, a yearlong cultural exchange designed to deepen the understanding between two nations and their people. The Year of Culture Qatar-United States also featured exhibitions of the works of Jeff Koons and Virgil Abloh in Doha and an exhibition of extraordinary textiles and portraits on loan from the Museum of Islamic Art at Washington, DC’s Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.
A robust public program will accompany the exhibition and include in-person and digital panel conversations and lectures, special tours, and more.
Qatar Museums and LACMA share a history of collaboration and professional exchanges going back to 2012 with the presentation of the LACMA’s exhibition, Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts at the Museum of Islamic Art. In 2018, the partnership was later expanded through a joint collaboration with the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.
Press release from Qatar Museums
Image: Dan Flavin. untitled (to Don Judd, colorist) 1-5. 1987. Pink, red, yellow, blue and green fluorescent light, five parts. 122 cm high, 122 cm wide (each). Installation view of Dan Flavin at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York City, 1995–96. Photography by David Heald. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. © Stephen Flavin/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Dan Flavin Estate. Image courtesy of David Zwirner
