If I had a nickel for every artist documentary made from well within the circle of subjectivity that caught me off guard with the nuances of the artist’s funerary arrangements, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s wild that it’s happened twice.
In 2007 Rainer Judd and Karen Bernstein co-directed Marfa Voices, a documentary about Donald Judd’s life and work in west Texas that emerged from the Judd Foundation’s Oral History Project. Among those who shared their stories were friends and colleagues who attended Judd’s funeral up Pinto Canyon in 1994, including the bagpiper, Joe Brady, Jr.
It probably could go without saying that Judd was buried in the most pristine of pine boxes, but it is remarkable to actually see it nonetheless.