American minimalist artist Donald Judd's first major furniture exhibition in Seoul has opened at Hyundai Card Storage, offering visitors a unique glimpse into how the renowned artist's philosophy of honesty extended beyond his famous sculptures into functional design. The exhibition, titled "Donald Judd: Furniture," runs through April 6, 2026, and features approximately 100 pieces of furniture created from the 1970s to the 1990s, alongside prints by the artist.

Judd, who broke with the conventions of modern art and paved the way for minimalism through radical simplicity and material clarity, began creating furniture in 1970 with his first piece—a bed made from black walnut. His approach to furniture design reflected the same principles that made him one of the most influential postwar artists: an emphasis on radical clarity, serial form, and the rejection of illusion and symbolism in favor of real objects in real space.

According to Flavin Judd, the artist's son and director of the Judd Foundation, honesty was the core value that his father brought to both art and design. "He said a lot about materials pretending to be other materials and that drives me crazy," the director recalled. "So for instance, he talks about using fiberglass to pretend to be stone. And for him, fiberglass is a material—why not just use it like that?" This philosophy of material honesty is immediately apparent when entering the exhibition, where visitors can clearly see what each piece of furniture is made of—wood, metal, or plywood—with each featuring simple lines without any added decoration.

The artist's approach to furniture design was deeply influenced by his philosophical training at Columbia University and his upbringing as the grandson of farmers. "Why would you hide something? Why would you make it complicated? If you are going to do something—you do it something honestly, because there is so much lying in the world," Flavin Judd said, recalling his father's words. "Why would you add to that?" This pragmatic approach extended to Judd's working methods, as evidenced by the simple furniture drawings displayed on the exhibition walls that functioned as instructions for carpenters.

These minimal drawings provided carpenters with basic dimensions and directions needed to build the furniture, and Donald Judd relied on craftsmen who quickly learned to translate his sparse directions into finished pieces. The artist's furniture continues to be produced on a custom basis today, with a production time of approximately three months. Despite the apparently simple designs, Flavin Judd explains that the specific angles, edges, and level of craftsmanship make it easy to distinguish original pieces from unauthorized copies, and the foundation takes legal action when necessary to protect the artist's work.

Judd's artistic philosophy, which shaped both his renowned sculpture series and his furniture designs, stemmed from what his son describes as "the commonality" underlying all his work. "They all come from the same place—the mixture of David Hume (Enlightenment philosopher known for rational clarity) and a Midwestern farmer's mindset that together form a kind of pragmatism, and a sense of baroque seriality inspired by J.S. Bach, building variations to create art and furniture," Flavin Judd explained. This unique blend of influences helped Judd create works that insisted on presenting art as immediate, accessible objects rather than representations or symbols, fundamentally changing how we understand minimalism in modern art and design.