Jud Fine

Jud Fine’s early-1970s work was firmly rooted in the tradition of minimalist sculpture, made from unadorned materials such as chicken wire and bamboo, arranged into serial geometric configurations. Over the course of the decade the seriality remained, and the bamboo poles—augmented by ones made from copper, steel, and fiberglass—took center stage. But the minimalist’s aversion to narrative, pictorial, and decorative content fell by the wayside as Fine began to create hybrid works that incorporated complex, formally captivating two-dimensional images in often-elaborate sculptural installations that purposefully defied categorization.

Out of this expansive practice emerged the works for which Fine remains best known—his arrangements of multiple 8-feet-9-inches-tall poles.