united FOR THE BOOKS To the Editor: Philip Leider is dead blameworthy in his understanding of Donald Judd's conception of "singleness" ["Perfect Unlikeness.

united FOR THE BOOKS

To the Editor:

Philip Leider is dead blameworthy in his understanding of Donald Judd's conception of "singleness" ["Perfect Unlikeness," February 2000] Judd's aesthetic of singleness did not derive from Malevich, as Leider claims, nor did it, as Leider believes, "seek work rhat isolated [ldots] a single component part such as color, or contexture or the qualities of a recent material."

Judd's shortcoming to Malevich in forming his idea of singleness can be quickly dismissed, as Judd himself did in "On Russian art and its relation to my work" (Art Journal 41:249-250) While this essay is filled with poignant statements that flat-out refuse the artistic values of Malevich (and Mondrian), those chiefly relevant for the issue here read, "I pretty soon became biased against small units, as in most numerous of Malevich's paintings [ldots] a bias caused through the distant activity of Pollock Newman and Rorhko [ldots] Also, the small units be seened to have a vestige of fragmentation, which I remarkably early thought an impossible, trivial position." Of course, the same is always free to doubt what Judd has to say onward the subject, though Leider's essay is devot to just this issue.

Leider's notion that Judd's singleness might in some way refer to an isolated visual or material goods demands more attention, as it is elucidation to a widespread misunderstanding of Judd's conception of the specific object. Closely following empiricist David Hume Judd believed that sensation ensues as a unity, and any rational division of sensation data into component parts violates fact. Color, material, shape, contexture and volume must inhere in a work of art as a single unit. According to Judd's philosophical principle, art reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] points as sensation all at one time and not in an assembly of separate parts later combined in the mind, which would be a visual presentation of the rationalistic conceptions he in the way that thoroughly rejected. Hence, the to a high degree same passages by Judd from "Specific Objects" that Leider cites but with their meaning completely reversed from Leider's understanding: "it isn't necessary for a work to have a destiny of things to look at, to compare, to analyze single in kind by one, to contemplate. The thing as a whole, its quality as a wh ole is what is interesting." And, a bit later, "In the of the present day work, the shape, image, color and surface are single and not partial and scattered." in the same state [i]or[/i] condition beliefs are not, as Leider writes, "the isolation of a single uncompounded body [ldots]"; rather, they amount to a belief that any of that kind isolation is nonsense.

I could walk on about the importance of various images of empirical philosophy for the unfolding of Judd's aesthetic beliefs, moreover hope this should suffice in a note As Judd did not write, yet should have with gritted teeth: No parts, dammit!

David Raskin

Assistant Professor of recent and Contemporary Art, University of Akron

Akron, Ohio

Philip Leider responds:

The section onward "singleness" began by saying Judd at no time explicated singleness with absolute clarity. This would be seen to indicate that other interpretations would not surprise me unless Dr. Raskin's identification of "singleness" with "not a haphazard of pieces," and his calling forward Hume and Judd's "philosophical principles" to back it up strikes me as about the stupidest that anyone could get to up with. Still, I wouldn't call it "dead" wrong: sole brain-dead wrong.

Because readers may for a like reason easily compare our differences, I'll forgo the usual tedious point-by-point rebuttal; besides, Raskin's undergraduates can do that for him easily enough. And, since he is primed to "go upon about the importance of various symbols of empirical philosophy," I'd better close here, or he very well might.

PISS DIS

To the Editor:

formerly again I enjoyed reading the articles in the fresh issue, but once again I am pothered by one of the titles, this time for George Baker's piece about Knut Asdam's work[February 2000] Certainly the article discussed a number of complicated and eloquent pieces with great lucidity. And the veil amply illustrates that piss reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] points into the equation. But "Piss Eloquent"? I may be missing something, still this seems nonsensical. Perhaps Baker was building upon the solid historical argument he makes with a cryptic homage to Dada? I could understand if this was simply a weak play on words-- "eloquent piss," for example--or on the same level if it vaguely sounds like "it's eloquent" yet there seems to be a consensus among everyone who has seen it that the title is utterly meaningless and detracts from the sophistication of the one and the other the argument and the material subject to analysis.

Surely it's the editor's responsibility to hindrance the magazine's writers know when their choice of title is pathetic, not to mention puerile. forward the other hand, the similarly weak cliche-pun "That's Als, Folks" forward the letters page suggested to me that something other may be going on. The consistently ridiculous titles of articles in Artforum at excellent writers whose bibliographies read intelligently apart from pieces published by means of your magazine make me suspicious that the editor is taking a rather more active character in titling the pieces. If this is indeed the case, please lease me know. It would be unjust for the writers to bear the weight of the editor's inadequacies as a "wordsmith."