COLD METAL: DONALD JUDD'S HIDDEN HISTORICITY CHARLES REEVE During the mid-1960s, the US artist Donald Judd developed the aesthetics of what he called 'the specific object'. Judd argued that specific objects provided the viewer with an un mediated aesthetic experience. The aesthetics of the specific object, as he formulated them, were based on the use of forms and surfaces that, within their historical context, appeared to be visually neutral. Judd's aesthetic theory was characteristically modernist, in that he not only conceived of the best art as that which contributed to the uncovering of the definitive characteristics of artistic media, but also believed aesthetic judgement and the related processes of thought and perception to be objective. To be sure, the idea that these processes are absolutely reliable is a compelling one. As Charles Taylor put it, 'We feel tempted to think ofliving things as "taking account" of their surroundings precisely because of the intelligent adaptation which they can make to novel situations.' 1 Yet the manifestations that the idea of objectivity takes can vary dramatically between geographical and chronological contexts. Accordingly, one way to label various historical moments as significantly different is to search for shifts in the way that this view is expressed. This task will underscore my exploration of the history of one particular expression of this conception of objectivity, namely an untitled work by Judd dating from 1965 (plate 31). I also want to argue that, in spite of Judd's efforts, this work shares the condition of art generally in so far as its appearance is, to some degree, a function of its history. Art-historical studies of post-Second World War US art have by now firmly established that the voice of the art critic Clement Greenberg held sway over much of the US art world throughout the major part of the 1950s. Greenberg argued that all good works of art contributed to the self-definition of their respective media; according to him this criterion was objective and universal. Words such as 'objective', 'natural', 'universal' and 'international' were, in this system of ideas, indicators that a particular work of art had usefully contributed to the identification of the irreducible elements of its medium. 2 Greenberg's use of these words to characterize his aesthetic judgements constituted a denial that his system of values was contingent upon its history. In fact, it constituted a denial even that his values were systematic. Such rhetoric is characteristic of totalizing value systems. As Jean Art History Vol. 15 No.4 December 1992 ISSN 0141-6790