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Lot Essay
Looking at the assembled sheets of metal that comprise Steel Row and Aluminum-Steel Plain, it would be easy to overlook the myriad influences that combined and distilled themselves to create Carl Andre's unique Minimalism. From the sea, quarries and harbour of his childhood surroundings to his teenage visit to Stonehenge, from sharing studio space with Frank Stella to his work on the railroads during the early 1960s, these influences all converged and collided, introducing novel ideas of space, sculptural form and material.
Perhaps the most important single influence was the Romanian sculptor, Constantin Brancusi. His incredible ability to pare down the forms of our perceived reality to a sculptural essence, his interest in cutting into materials rather than modelling them and of course his Endless Columns all made their mark on Andre, as was overtly evident in his totemic wooden ladder-like sculptures from the 1950s. It was when Andre reached his artistic maturity in the mid-1960s that the subtler and more profound implications of Brancusi's sculpture came to the fore. Now, he began to assemble accumulations of materials, most famously humble bricks, and simply arranged them on the ground, where Brancusi had used old materials, salvaging wood and nails and carving into them. The arrangement itself was Andre's only artistic intervention.
In these sculptures, Andre was adapting Brancusi's legacy: rather than cutting the material that he used, he discovered that the material itself cut the space. Placing an object in a certain way was enough to create an artwork. This led to 'sculptures' constructed from readymade elements-- pieces of wood, bricks, Styrofoam and metal-- arranged in such a manner that they defined the space that contained them as well as demanding the viewer's attention in their own rights. Unlike the Duchampian readymade, there was no equivalent of the transformative process that had turned a urinal into a Fountain. The brick remained a brick, the steel remained steel. Andre focussed on materials that would theoretically have been used in construction. These were the raw elements of the industrial world, slabs of metal, wood and brick that had been created in a precise form, ready for use. Andre allowed these forms to determine, to a great degree, the appearance of their accumulation, placing each element in a manner that appeared seamless and logical (a process that would be taken to a new extreme by his Scatter Pieces, comprising elements too small to arrange coherently in an exhibition space). However, he took pains to ensure that these accumulations did not come to approach the forms for which the materials had originally been intended. It was by placing them in a new context that he brought the viewer's attention to their own inherent qualities.
Explaining the evolution of his art, Andre pointed out that, 'My work has never been architectural. I began by generating forms, then generating structures, then generating places. A place in this sense is a pedestal for the rest of the world' (Andre, quoted in K. Baker, Minimalism: Art of Circumstance, New York, London & Paris, 1988, p. 45). This was taken to a new level by the works that Andre created that were one layer thick, for instance Lever, executed in 1966, which was appropriately a deliberate yet challenging echo of the Endless Column. Lever consisted of a row of 137 bricks arranged on the ground side by side, stretching from a wall into the room that held them. This and subsequent works such as Steel Row, created the following year, discarded the thrusting verticality in order to occupy and define space: 'All I'm doing,' Andre explained, 'is putting Brancusi's Endless Column on the ground instead of in the sky. Most sculpture is priapic with the male organ in the air. In my work, Priapus is down on the floor. The engaged position is to run along the earth' (Andre, quoted in D. Bourdon, 'A Redefinition of Sculpture,' pp. 13-40, Carl Andre: Sculpture 1959-1977, exh.cat., New York, 1978, p. 27).
In Steel Row, the horizontal arrangement of steel plates, taken exactly as they were produced by the factory, has a flatness that marks a further departure from Lever. This is one of the first sculptures that Andre produced that was explicitly intended to be stepped upon, creating a new relationship between the work and the viewer-- a word that in this context becomes hopelessly inadequate. It is only right that as a Minimalist sculptor, Andre essentially removed the third dimension-- Steel Row and Aluminum-Steel Plain each stand at less than half an inch in height. He was removing the slightest threat of figuration, removing even the traditional physical presence of a sculpture.
Despite being low on the ground, Steel Row still cuts and therefore defines the space that contains it. Walking onto and along the hot-rolled steel, the viewer interacts materially with the work in a way prohibited by so many museums and by the shape and fragility of so many other artists' sculptures, but also crucially interacts with the space in a new way. We are lifted that vital little height. We have steel beneath our feet. Even the sound is different from that of walking in the rest of the room. In this sense, by highlighting these differences, Steel Row provides a revelation both about its own material values and about those of its and our surroundings-- Steel Row truly is 'a pedestal for the rest of the world.'
With its runway-like appearance, which has been determined by the repeated geometrical form of the steel plates from which it is made, Steel Row perfectly exemplifies Andre's assertion that
'Most of my works-- certainly the successful ones-- have been ones that are in a way causeways-- they cause you to make your way along them or around them or to move the spectator over them. They're like roads, but certainly not fixed point vistas. I think sculpture should have an infinite point of view. There should be no one place or even a group of places where you should be' (Andre, quoted in Bourdon, op.cit., 1978, p. 16).
Aluminum-Steel Plain is more of a plateau than a road or causeway, but this only serves to increase the space upon which the viewer can roam, and it is telling that the spelling of the punning title emphasises geographical space more than the work's planarity. Crucially, as with so many of his sculptures, it is not only the appearance but also the other sensual content of the material that is crucial to the appreciation of this work, a factor that is emphasised by its flatness, which results in the viewer being able to stand upon and therefore within the sculpture and yet not to see it, lurking as it is beneath the peripheries of our vision. This sense-driven interplay between the sculpture and the 'viewer' reveals an existential dimension-- the sensual experience of standing on Aluminum-Steel Plain becomes evidence of our own existence-- while also displaying the artist's sheer love of and fascination with his materials:
'There are a number of properties which materials have which are conveyed by walking on them: there are things like the sound of a piece of work and its sense of friction, you might say. I even believe that you can get a sense of mass, although this may be nothing but a superstition which I have. But I believe that man is equipped with a subtle sense of detecting differences in mass between materials of similar appearance but with different mass. I don't think there's a concrete sense; you can't name what this sense is. But perhaps it has something to do with the inner ear and balance or something. Nevertheless, I believe that man can almost unconsciously detect differences in mass. Standing in the middle of a square of lead would give you an entirely different sense than standing in the middle of a square of magnesium' (Andre, quoted in P. Tuchman, 'An Interview with Carl Andre,' pp. 46-51, Carl Andre Sculptor 1996, exh.cat., Krefeld, 1996, pp. 47-48).
This was taken to a new level when Aluminum-Steel Plain was exhibited in Andre's celebrated 1970 exhibition in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. There, it was displayed in the lobby alongside thirty-five other Plains. These had all been united to form a vast Plain, a metasculpture that was entitled 37 Pieces of Work, the titular thirty-seventh being this temporary arrangement itself. There, various different types of metal were united in a vast flat area that allowed the viewer to roam and experience the various material qualities of the sculpture while also being provided with further enlightenment as to the spatial and material qualities of the museum space itself.
Perhaps the most important single influence was the Romanian sculptor, Constantin Brancusi. His incredible ability to pare down the forms of our perceived reality to a sculptural essence, his interest in cutting into materials rather than modelling them and of course his Endless Columns all made their mark on Andre, as was overtly evident in his totemic wooden ladder-like sculptures from the 1950s. It was when Andre reached his artistic maturity in the mid-1960s that the subtler and more profound implications of Brancusi's sculpture came to the fore. Now, he began to assemble accumulations of materials, most famously humble bricks, and simply arranged them on the ground, where Brancusi had used old materials, salvaging wood and nails and carving into them. The arrangement itself was Andre's only artistic intervention.
In these sculptures, Andre was adapting Brancusi's legacy: rather than cutting the material that he used, he discovered that the material itself cut the space. Placing an object in a certain way was enough to create an artwork. This led to 'sculptures' constructed from readymade elements-- pieces of wood, bricks, Styrofoam and metal-- arranged in such a manner that they defined the space that contained them as well as demanding the viewer's attention in their own rights. Unlike the Duchampian readymade, there was no equivalent of the transformative process that had turned a urinal into a Fountain. The brick remained a brick, the steel remained steel. Andre focussed on materials that would theoretically have been used in construction. These were the raw elements of the industrial world, slabs of metal, wood and brick that had been created in a precise form, ready for use. Andre allowed these forms to determine, to a great degree, the appearance of their accumulation, placing each element in a manner that appeared seamless and logical (a process that would be taken to a new extreme by his Scatter Pieces, comprising elements too small to arrange coherently in an exhibition space). However, he took pains to ensure that these accumulations did not come to approach the forms for which the materials had originally been intended. It was by placing them in a new context that he brought the viewer's attention to their own inherent qualities.
Explaining the evolution of his art, Andre pointed out that, 'My work has never been architectural. I began by generating forms, then generating structures, then generating places. A place in this sense is a pedestal for the rest of the world' (Andre, quoted in K. Baker, Minimalism: Art of Circumstance, New York, London & Paris, 1988, p. 45). This was taken to a new level by the works that Andre created that were one layer thick, for instance Lever, executed in 1966, which was appropriately a deliberate yet challenging echo of the Endless Column. Lever consisted of a row of 137 bricks arranged on the ground side by side, stretching from a wall into the room that held them. This and subsequent works such as Steel Row, created the following year, discarded the thrusting verticality in order to occupy and define space: 'All I'm doing,' Andre explained, 'is putting Brancusi's Endless Column on the ground instead of in the sky. Most sculpture is priapic with the male organ in the air. In my work, Priapus is down on the floor. The engaged position is to run along the earth' (Andre, quoted in D. Bourdon, 'A Redefinition of Sculpture,' pp. 13-40, Carl Andre: Sculpture 1959-1977, exh.cat., New York, 1978, p. 27).
In Steel Row, the horizontal arrangement of steel plates, taken exactly as they were produced by the factory, has a flatness that marks a further departure from Lever. This is one of the first sculptures that Andre produced that was explicitly intended to be stepped upon, creating a new relationship between the work and the viewer-- a word that in this context becomes hopelessly inadequate. It is only right that as a Minimalist sculptor, Andre essentially removed the third dimension-- Steel Row and Aluminum-Steel Plain each stand at less than half an inch in height. He was removing the slightest threat of figuration, removing even the traditional physical presence of a sculpture.
Despite being low on the ground, Steel Row still cuts and therefore defines the space that contains it. Walking onto and along the hot-rolled steel, the viewer interacts materially with the work in a way prohibited by so many museums and by the shape and fragility of so many other artists' sculptures, but also crucially interacts with the space in a new way. We are lifted that vital little height. We have steel beneath our feet. Even the sound is different from that of walking in the rest of the room. In this sense, by highlighting these differences, Steel Row provides a revelation both about its own material values and about those of its and our surroundings-- Steel Row truly is 'a pedestal for the rest of the world.'
With its runway-like appearance, which has been determined by the repeated geometrical form of the steel plates from which it is made, Steel Row perfectly exemplifies Andre's assertion that
'Most of my works-- certainly the successful ones-- have been ones that are in a way causeways-- they cause you to make your way along them or around them or to move the spectator over them. They're like roads, but certainly not fixed point vistas. I think sculpture should have an infinite point of view. There should be no one place or even a group of places where you should be' (Andre, quoted in Bourdon, op.cit., 1978, p. 16).
Aluminum-Steel Plain is more of a plateau than a road or causeway, but this only serves to increase the space upon which the viewer can roam, and it is telling that the spelling of the punning title emphasises geographical space more than the work's planarity. Crucially, as with so many of his sculptures, it is not only the appearance but also the other sensual content of the material that is crucial to the appreciation of this work, a factor that is emphasised by its flatness, which results in the viewer being able to stand upon and therefore within the sculpture and yet not to see it, lurking as it is beneath the peripheries of our vision. This sense-driven interplay between the sculpture and the 'viewer' reveals an existential dimension-- the sensual experience of standing on Aluminum-Steel Plain becomes evidence of our own existence-- while also displaying the artist's sheer love of and fascination with his materials:
'There are a number of properties which materials have which are conveyed by walking on them: there are things like the sound of a piece of work and its sense of friction, you might say. I even believe that you can get a sense of mass, although this may be nothing but a superstition which I have. But I believe that man is equipped with a subtle sense of detecting differences in mass between materials of similar appearance but with different mass. I don't think there's a concrete sense; you can't name what this sense is. But perhaps it has something to do with the inner ear and balance or something. Nevertheless, I believe that man can almost unconsciously detect differences in mass. Standing in the middle of a square of lead would give you an entirely different sense than standing in the middle of a square of magnesium' (Andre, quoted in P. Tuchman, 'An Interview with Carl Andre,' pp. 46-51, Carl Andre Sculptor 1996, exh.cat., Krefeld, 1996, pp. 47-48).
This was taken to a new level when Aluminum-Steel Plain was exhibited in Andre's celebrated 1970 exhibition in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. There, it was displayed in the lobby alongside thirty-five other Plains. These had all been united to form a vast Plain, a metasculpture that was entitled 37 Pieces of Work, the titular thirty-seventh being this temporary arrangement itself. There, various different types of metal were united in a vast flat area that allowed the viewer to roam and experience the various material qualities of the sculpture while also being provided with further enlightenment as to the spatial and material qualities of the museum space itself.