Carl Andre

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Carl Andre
Born September 16, 1935 (1935-09-16) (age 73)
Quincy, MA
Nationality American
Field Sculpture
Training Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
Movement Minimalism
Influenced by Hollis Frampton

Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized mainly for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures ranging from large public artworks (such as Stone Field Sculpture, 1977 in Hartford, CT[1] and Lament for the Children, 1976[2] in Long Island City, NY) to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space (such as 144 Lead Square, 1969[3] or Twenty-fifth Steel Cardinal, 1974).

[edit] Biography

Andre was born in Quincy, MA. He completed primary and secondary schooling in the Quincy public school system and studied art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA from 1951 to 1953.[4] While at Phillips Academy he became friends with Hollis Frampton who would later influence Andre's radical approach to sculpture through their conversations about art[5] and through introductions to other artists.[6]

Andre served in the U.S. Army in North Carolina 1955-56 and moved to New York City in 1956. While in New York, Frampton introduced Andre to Constantin Brâncuşi through whom Andre became re-acquainted with a former classmate from Phillips Academy, Frank Stella, in 1958. Andre shared studio space with Stella from 1958 through 1960.[7]

Andre's early work in wood may have been inspired by Brâncuşi, but his conversations with Stella about space and form led him in a different direction. While sharing a studio with Stella, Andre developed a series of wooden "cut" sculptures[8] (such as Radial Arm Saw cut sculpture, 1959, and Maple Spindle Exercise, 1959). Stella is noted as having said to Andre (regarding hunks of wood removed from Andre's sculpture) "Carl, that's sculpture, too."[9]

From 1960-64 Andre worked as freight brakeman and conductor in New Jersey for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The experience with blue collar labor and the ordered nature of conducting freight trains would have a later influence on Andre's sculpture and artistic personality. For example, it was not uncommon for Andre to dress in overalls and a blue work shirt, even to the most formal occasions."[10]

During this period, Andre focused mainly on writing and there is little notable sculpture on record between 1960 and 1965. The poetry would resurface later, most notably in a book (finally published in 1980 by NYU press) called 12 Dialogues in which Andre and Frampton took turns responding to one another at a typewriter using mainly poetry and free-form essay-like texts.[11] Andre's concrete poetry has exhibited in the United States and Europe, a comprehensive collection of which is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.[12]

In 1965 he had his first public exhibition of work in the "Shape and Structure" show curated by Henry Geldzahler at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. Andre's controversial "Lever" was included in the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled Primary Structures. In 1970 he had a one man exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and has had one man exhibitions and participated in group shows in major museums, galleries, and kunsthalles throughout America and Europe.

In 1969 Andre helped organize the Art Workers Coalition.

In 1972 Britain's Tate Gallery acquired Andre's Equivalent VIII, an arrangement of bricks. It was shown several times without incident but became the center of controversy in 1976 after it featured in an article in The Sunday Times. It was defaced with paint later in the year. The "Bricks controversy" became one of the most famous public debates in Britain about contemporary art.[13]

In 1979 Andre first met Ana Mendieta through a mutual friendship with artists Leon Golub and Nancy Spero at AIR Gallery in New York City.[14] Andre and Mendieta eventually married in 1985, but the relationship ended in tragedy. Mendieta fell to her death from Andre's 34th story apartment window in 1985 after an argument with Andre. Andre was charged with second degree murder. He elected to be tried before a judge with no jury. In 1988 Andre was acquitted of all charges related to Mendieta's death.[15]

He is represented by the Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and by Sadie Coles HQ.

[edit] Footnotes and References

  1. ^ Hartford Advocate 11/13/1997 "Twenty Years After Stone Field Sculpture shook the Insurance City, Carl Andre Returns" by Patricia Rosoff [1]
  2. ^ Lament for the Children 1976 Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY [2]]
  3. ^ 144 Lead Square [3]
  4. ^ Naked by the Window by Robert Katz published 1990 by The Atlantic Monthly Free Press ISBN 0-87113-354-7
  5. ^ 12 Dialogues Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton 1962-1963 published by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Press and New York University Press, edited by Benjamin HD Buchloh ISBN 0-8147-0579-0
  6. ^ Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, edited by James Meyer, published 2004 by Yale University Press ISBN 0300105908,9780300105902
  7. ^ Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, edited by James Meyer, published 2004 by Yale University Press ISBN 0300105908,9780300105902
  8. ^ 12 Dialogues Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton 1962-1963 published by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Press and New York University Press, edited by Benjamin HD Buchloh ISBN 0-8147-0579-0
  9. ^ Naked by the Window by Robert Katz, published 1990 by The Atlantic Monthly Free Press ISBN 0-87113-354-7
  10. ^ Naked by the Window by Robert Katz published 1990 by The Atlantic Monthly Free Press ISBN 0-87113-354-7
  11. ^ 12 Dialogues Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton 1962-1963 published by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Press and New York University Press, edited by Benjamin HD Buchloh ISBN 0-8147-0579-0
  12. ^ http://www.leftmatrix.com/andrelist.html
  13. ^ Tate Gallery, The Bricks controversy
  14. ^ Naked by the Window by Robert Katz published 1990 by The Atlantic Monthly Free Press ISBN 0-87113-354-7
  15. ^ A Death in the Art World, New York Times, June 10, 1990

Busch, Julia M. (1974). A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960's. London: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-87982-007-1. 


[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Andre"
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