"Specific Objects" - NYTimes.com 522 West 24th Street, Chelsea Through July 26 This exhibition proposes to correct the widely held misconception about Donald Judd's often-quoted 1965 article "Specific Objects": that it is a statement of first principles, a manifesto for Minimalist art. It has been organized by David Platzker, a former dealer in rare contemporary art books and catalogs, husband of Susan Inglett and a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. In "Specific Objects" Judd wrote of a new kind of three-dimensional work that incorporated aspects of painting and sculpture but was neither. He had in mind something much more robust and physically eccentric than Carl Andre's plates or Sol LeWitt's white grids. This is evident from the many artists mentioned in the article, and the several works that illustrate it. Still, the article is mostly known by a few well-worn quotations. This show suffers from lack of clout: getting the right loans was difficult. Works less substantial or less representative of Judd's thesis prevail: drawings, not objects, by Claes Oldenburg and Richard Artschwager; negligible works by Robert Watts, Yayoi Kusama and Arman; and nothing by John Chamberlain, Lee Bontecou or George Ortman. Standouts include an exquisite relief from 1954-6 by Bruce Conner in oil paint and gold leaf on Masonite, and a painted cardboard helmet and halberd that Roy Lichtenstein made for his performance in Dick Higgins's 1964 Happening, "HruSalk." But there's a silver lining to the paucity of choice. Whether he means to or not, Mr. Platzker subverts Judd's position by showing that his anointed artists had other ideas. George Brecht is represented by a printed exit sign, not a sculpture; Yves Klein by documentation of his famous leap. Thus postwar ready-mades, performance and printed matter complicate the discussion.