Carl Andre / Artist Review

Remembering my days in 2006 when I roamed what is now my favorite museum in the whole wide world, Tate Modern in Southwark, London. At the Tate Modern in one of the exhibitions I remembering seeing a sculpture of an artist called Carl Andre.

The sculpture in the picture is called Equivalent VIII. Nothing more than a pile of bricks. 120 white firebricks placed in a rectangular form, constitutes this piece of minimalist work.

Andre´s piece provocked an uproar in London in 1976 when it was subject to a piece in the Sunday Times, questioning the content of art of this Tate Modern art display...I would say he is a genius...

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 Squares [3], 1969 or Twenty-fifth Steel Cardinal, 1974)..

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 Dialgues 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, N.Y.[14]. Andre and Mendieta eventually married in 1984 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]