In conversation with Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Judd Foundation’s first director of design 

Think Donald Judd, and you immediately think of the Untitled (Stack) – or Plywood, particularly for anyone who has followed the contemporary design world over the last decade. Judd is a giant. Most people know the art, and 20th-century art history would be incomplete without his defining works and writings on the vernacular and, albeit reluctantly, minimalism. Now, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, Judd’s precise inquiries into architecture and furniture are becoming as widely recognised as his wall works and floor pieces – thanks in large part to the exhibitions and programming of Judd Foundation, as well as the four-decade-old commercial arm Donald Judd Furniture, which continues to appear across galleries, art fairs and cultural institutions. (How many celebrity homes now include a ‘Daybed’ or ‘La Mansana’ table?)

With this growing interest, in summer 2026, 101 Spring Street presents the exhibition ‘Donald Judd Furniture: Wood and Metal’, a selection of vernacular pieces that thoroughly exemplify Judd’s ethos outlined in his famous essay, ‘It’s Hard to Find A Good Lamp’.

As such, Judd Foundation ‘decided about a year ago that it needed its own [design] director’, explains Judd’s son and foundation co-president Flavin Judd (who shares responsibilities with his sister, Rainer Judd). ‘Design is just as important as art with regards to Don’s practice and spaces, as well as the work of the foundation in extending scholarship on his work and ideas.’ So who did the organisation choose for the job? ‘We already knew Alexandra and it was just obvious,’ says Flavin.

Enter Alexandra Cunningham Cameron – an honoree of the Wallpaper* US400 and a veteran of contemporary design who helped shape the design market through Design Miami and navigate the evolving institutional landscape at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. As the first-ever director of design for Judd Foundation, Cunningham Cameron arrives as the organisation prepares for the Judd Centennial in 2028 – a milestone that will bring a series of institutional exhibitions and programmes across New York, Marfa and internationally (details remain under wraps, but the scope is expansive). With considerable curiosity surrounding the appointment, Wallpaper* spoke with Cunningham Cameron about what’s next for Judd Design.

Judd Foundation’s first director of design on her new role

Wallpaper*: What does it mean to become the director of design for such an esteemed artist foundation?

Alexandra Cunningham Cameron: I'm only a month or two in, so I'm still exploring. It's a new position, and the way it’s been structured is around increasing awareness and understanding of Judd’s broader design practice. So this is a full range of activities: developing new scholarship programmes, institutional collaborations and fostering Donald Judd furniture, which continues to be produced and supports the foundation financially. I'm also looking at Judd’s work in product design, adaptive reuse, environmental design, graphic design and other areas of the field.

W*: How do you see carrying his design and architectural legacy forward?

ACC: That’s part of the plan I’m developing. Looking closely at his personal collections has been fascinating to me. He had an incredibly sophisticated understanding of international material culture, and you see that in the careful selection of objects he surrounded himself with – everything from a bedside clock to an Alvar Aalto ‘Paimio Sanatorium’ piece.

I have an unusual background in that I worked in the commercial sector for many years at Design Miami – working with design galleries, looking at the design market – eventually specialising in practices that exist between art and design: artists who became designers or architects, or architects and designers who moved more into visual art; people who maintain this kind of polyvocal approach.

Then I went to Cooper Hewitt as curator of contemporary design, and that’s when Rainer and Flavin thought of me for this role. I think they saw my ability to look at both sides. I think of design as an ecosystem. It’s a practice, but there are commercial elements. It’s related to trade and preservation. It carries forward material culture and material histories.

So I felt like this opportunity was an incredible moment to bring that experience into the foundation, which has already done such an incredible job of documenting and preserving his design legacy, inviting the public to visit the spaces in New York and Marfa, publishing catalogues…

There’s been a lot of work around design already done recently. There was an exhibition in Tokyo, a furniture exhibition in Seoul, and we just opened a small furniture exhibition upstairs here at 101 Spring Street. For me, one of the challenges is thinking about how to make design an automatic reference in the Judd lexicon – making it more familiar and available to people outside of some of the circles you mentioned.

W*: Judd kept art and design, as well as institutional and commercial, separate. How do you navigate those divisions in your role?

ACC: Judd definitely drew a hard line around use; but you see in all of the Judd spaces how the art and the design live together. When you’re looking at a practice that reaches out into different ways of making, they’re not necessarily working against each other. Two, three, four or five things can be true at the same time.

I’m less interested in trying to draw that distinction and more interested in growing the understanding around what was happening with Judd design, why it was meaningful, and how it was an important part of his overall body of work.

Something that’s incredibly interesting for me is thinking about how to connect the design work to the contemporary moment – conversations around design, and how we think about self-reliance, subjectivity and care for the environment. It’s important to think about the furniture and design practice as something that isn’t only in the past, but something that continues to live today.

The topics in the contemporary design world – organic materials, circularity, local production, craft – are all present in his design practice. They’re often topics that are less discussed, so I would love to open up more conversations about how the design practice relates to these critical contemporary design and architecture issues.

Judd was advocating for new ideas; he was bringing a critical lens to the world, and I think that’s something the international design world needs a bit more of – taking risks, acting on your own terms and standing up for your point of view.

W*: What’s one of your first projects out of the gate – how do you want to bring Judd’s ideas into actual dialogue?

ACC: At the moment I’m focused on going to Marfa to dive into the archive, spend more time thinking and planning, visit all the sites and go into storage. I’ve only been to Marfa once, for the reopening of the Architecture Office last year, so it’s all still in development.

But I would say that some of the characteristics really associated with innovation are how I want to approach his work. It’s important to remain true to his vision, but at this time that doesn’t mean it’s something static.

W*: What, out of Judd’s architecture and design canon, is the most emblematic of the way he thinks about design?

ACC: Oh, this is an interesting question. Looking at the furniture forms, their use of material and form is so clear. You can almost immediately see the thinking behind how they were made, how they will be used, and also where they’re from. There’s a clarity to that vision that many people respond to immediately, almost intuitively, which I find fascinating.

Everyone from amateur woodworkers to people running institutions – there’s really a vast range of Judd furniture enthusiasts. So one of the elemental furniture forms is probably the most familiar.

In terms of the experimental, something I’m still developing an understanding around, I’m fascinated by his work in land conservation and the 33,000 acres in Marfa. How Judd was thinking about landscaping, preservation and care for the environment – nature is wild, but abstract too – and that kind of grappling with the natural world and sciences is something I’m looking forward to developing a deeper understanding of when I’m in Marfa.