Leslie Jamison wrote an essay for The Atlantic on an exhibition of the "austere" artwork of Donald Judd and how her daughter helped her see beyond her own question to understand the "meaning" of Judd's work and allow herself instead to "feel" the work. To get a sense of his work, check out this photo below.
To be honest, I have no idea what this installation is called, but it's clearly - boxes.
I know I’ve must have seen his art before, and thought it beautiful and interesting and also ... structurally pleasing.
But I also understand her query, "why?" What is the artist trying to tell me or what statement are they making by displaying boxes, on the ground?
Her essay (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/leslie-jamison-donald-judd/615505/) is about how she has pondered these questions over the years every time she has viewed his work and how she started to rethink whether she was even asking the right questions when she took her toddler daughter to a retrospective exhibit and her daughter was totally obsessed with the work and wanted to touch, everything and climb in and interact with everything, which is a problem because the art is actually really delicate.
The ending of the essay in particular is what I want to focus on. She discusses her new understanding of his work in the context of Covid.
For instance, the above photo is a series of boxes, all the same, but all – slightly different. Like the passing of days in quarantine.
She talks about how embracing the beauty of life without holding on to it too tightly or requiring it to be something it is not is ... enlightenment.
I agree with this and that's pretty much how I go through live. I don't expect or require novelty. I actually like the sameness and the amazing diversity that occurs in the sameness of days.
My family's experience with Covid is that we have contracted quite a bit. We don't go out and when we do, we take out. But the lack of commitments we have, allows us to explore more. We have more time for mundane things, like biking around the neighborhood for exercise. Even that, has diversity. Depending on the time we go, we may run into neighbors, or have to dodge cars, or maybe we will be out at the magic hour that the bats are out hunting for bugs. The days are all the same, and yet, all different. Noticing the little differences and taking joy in those little differences, does feel a lot like enlightenment.
It's the same with humans. We humans are astonishing alike, and yet, totally different from one another. We all have the same basic emotional toolkit, and yet, our life experience are totally different.
It is a mistake to try and fit an individual human into a preset box. Trying to do so will result in failure. Which is probably why Judd's work has always resonated with me. All the boxes are basically the same and yet, different. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
In a very oxymoronic reality, structure and templates provide the space for diversity to be created. To create novelty, we don't have to throw out our templates or what came before, we can create novelty out of the commonplace.
My challenge to you, my fellow humanists, is to seek out the beauty of each individual human you meet. We follow the template for human, but there is infinite diversity in how we actually manifest as humans.
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