Its expression is resolved, stated but is relatively simple and general; the new combination becomes assured. The panes look like expansions of the areas in De Kooning’s pantings in which strokes one way are brushed another way. Its attractiveness is quickly spent by the inconclusiveness of its space. It is either robust or inconclusive and definite but pat. The quality imminent in it is dour, even grim, both spontaneous and rigidly controlled, both of an oppressive violence and a bitter harmony. It has the classic hallmarks of preliminaries. Its structure and consequent quality are frank but not unique. The result is cool, tough and rigorous. It has implications of objectivity and, as alien as that is, the artist may eventually need a form of it to continue.
An assemblage of found sentences from Donald Judd’s 1960 reviews of Abstract Expressionism shows, compiled for “NORD SUD EST OUEST” by Gédeon Delalysse.