Dan Flavin and Donald Judd Exhibition Heads to Doha

Doha Follow +

It’s being billed as the largest museum exhibition (outside of the United States) of artist friends Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, who helped introduce new industrial materials to the art world from the 1960s. It’s also their first major exhibition in the Middle East.

Such sudden, strong interest in artists is typical of oil states’ recent splurge on the arts as they rush to build their creative economies and tourism industries.

Dan Flavin | Donald Judd: Doha at QM Gallery Al Riwaq opens in Doha on 25 October. It is presented in partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and curated by the museum’s CEO Michael Govan, Director Wallis Annenberg, and Associate Curator Jennifer King.

The exhibition builds on a partnership agreement signed in 2018 between Qatar Museums, LACMA, and Budi Tek‘s Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

‘We are grateful to Michael Govan and our partners at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for working with us to bring this landmark exhibition to Qatar, where we are introducing the works of two icons of contemporary art, Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, not just to Qatar but to the entire region,’ said Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums and sister of Qatar’s ruling Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Drawing on the collection of Qatar Museums and loans from other museums, private collections, the Dan Flavin Estate, and the Judd Foundation, the exhibition will feature 34 works by Flavin and 25 by Judd.

Highlights include Flavin’s untitled (in honour of Harold Joachim) 3 (1977)—a fluorescent light installation that looks soft as a mohair sweater—and Judd’s untitled (1965), a vertical stack of galvanised iron boxes as hard as an obelisk.

‘Dan Flavin and Donald Judd are often described as the founders of American minimalism,’ Govan said in a press release. ‘In the end, their artworks are anything but minimal.’

‘On the contrary, the works in this exhibition from all periods of the two artists’ careers demonstrate their mastery of colour, form, materials, as well as their attention to their artworks’ relationship to their surrounding architecture.’ —[O]

Main image: Dan Flavin, untitled (1970). Blue and red fluorescent light, modular units, each made of two 8 foot (244 cm) vertical fixtures and two 8-foot (244 cm) horizontal fixtures: length variable. Qatar Museums Collection. © 2023 Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Courtesy David Zwirner.