Cover Five: Donald Judd's Architecture Studio by Phoenix Johnson

Introducing The Icons Issue.

The Oxford dictionary defines an icon as ‘a person or thing that people admire and see as a symbol of a particular idea or way of life’. At Neptune, we chose to look at it in the idea of a person leading life with a singular point of view.

In an episode that has since (along with so many others concerning Donald Judd) entered art-world legend, the future sculptor, theorist, and all-around form-giver made his first visit to the West Texas desert at the tender age of eighteen, marking the occasion by sending a telegram back home to Westwood, New Jersey. “DEAR MOM,” it read. “BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY MOUNTAINS LOVE=DON.” Years later, during a 1973 interview, he explained his enthusiasm for the vast expanses of the Trans-Pecos in somewhat (though not much) greater detail. “There’s room to think out there,” he said.

By then, the artist had already set up a large establishment in and around Marfa, a tiny railroad town about two hours’ drive from the Mexican border and a fair distance from just about anything else. Comprising a former military encampment, a ranch in the mountains, and several buildings on the main drag, Judd’s Marfa operations were many things at once: a production facility, giving him more and better space to fabricate his highly-refined installations; a platform for storage and exhibitions, both of his own work and that of friends like Dan Flavin and John Wesley; and a kind of running conceptual experiment in real estate, the flat, unpeopled land (and Judd’s progressive acquisition of it) becoming a massive artwork in itself. And then there was the architecture.

Step into the Donald Judd Architecture Studio ahead of its multi-year closure for a much-needed touch-up of its own, giving a refresh to the warren of cubicle-like spaces on the upper floor as well as the impressive double-height lobby at street level.

This issue features: Angela Westwater, Boucheron, Caroline Belhumeur, Celine, Donald Judd Foundation, Dries Van Noten, Emmanuel de Bayser, François Halard, Galerie Chastel-Maréchal, Galerie Wittmann, Hauser & Wirth, Husband Wife, Jacques Garcia, Jacques Lacoste, Joseph Dirand, Lauren Hutton, Le Sirenuse, Malgosia Bela, Martin Brûlé, Max Rocha, New York Now, Rajan Bijlani, Saint Laurent, Saman Amel, Somerset House, Sophie Carbonari, Studio Ebur, The Row, Urban Jürgensen and more!