Visiting Scholar: Gavin Morrison

Please join Judd Foundation and the Chinati Foundation on Thursday, December 7, at 6:00 p.m. for a discussion with writer and curator Gavin Morrison. Taking place at Marfa Public Library, the talk will focus on ‘Donald Judd, William Morris, and Iceland.’ It is free and open to the public. 

In the early 1980s, Donald Judd’s desire to see the sites mentioned in the Icelandic sagas brought him to the island nation. A little over a hundred years before Judd’s visit, the writer, artist, and designer William Morris had undertaken a trip of a similar purpose. This talk will consider both Judd’s and Morris’ interests and responses to Iceland. Though Morris only travelled to Iceland twice, Judd became a regular visitor until his death; it was a place for him where writing, art, architecture, and landscape coalesced most meaningfully.

Gavin Morrison was the Director of Skaftfell – Center of Visual Art, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland from 2018 to 2020. Presently he is developing an exhibition of the work of the architect Berthold Lubetkin (1901-90) for the National Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia and a Napoleonic culinary dictionary. He is completing a book concerning Donald Judd’s relationship with Iceland.