As Francis Colpitt has observed, for Judd, to take an interest in a thing is "to value that thing." "Does the work hold your interest?" Judd would ask. "Do you want to live with it and think about it?" Declaring that a work "needs only to be interesting," Judd means that it only be worth looking at. It may not be a good work, but it held ones gaze. A work that caused one to look again was even more interesting; a great work had a lasting interest. Judd seems to have adopted Perry's notion for another reason. A term of judgement, "interest" sounded more neutral, more objective perhaps, than effusive panegyrics favored by the writers at Artnews durring the late fifties.

[...]

In short Judd did not intend to supplant Greenbergian "quality" with a non-evaluative interest. He meant to suggest that a work that was interesting was worth looking at not "merely" interesting.

damn this is a great chapter in very good book. great smithson takes on these pages as well.
- bill 3-23-2010 6:32 pm [add a comment]