Some Recent American Art; a display of minimal and conceptual art organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the last phases of the Vietnam war, anti-American sentiment ran high and both the exhibition and Judd’s sculpture commission caused a public outcry in Adelaide. Local academics joined with students, political groups and the media to denounce this “American imperialism” and “servility to things foreign” through protests and a debate which continued into 1975.

Ian North was the Gallery’s Curator of Paintings and Sculptures in the 1970s and recalls meeting Judd: “It was my first encounter with a big time American artist… I remember him lounging back in my office, hands behind his head, cowboy boots on… he was a man of immense self confidence; he was very sure of his mission and of his singular importance as an artist.”

The Adelaide commission encouraged Judd to experiment and Untitled stands as a stark monument to minimalism; an angular monolith whose lines work both with and against those of its surroundings. Says North, “the Judd sculpture was Adelaide’s Blue Poles – suggestive of artistic progressiveness against the conservatism of the times.” It is one of only a very few site-specific outdoor installations in the world created by the artist. Others exist in Germany, New York and in the grounds of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaaan, Conneticut.