Andre, Carl (1935-…) is an American sculptor associated with the Minimalism movement. Minimalism is a style in the arts that developed in the 1960’s in the United States, especially in New York City.
Like other Minimalist sculptors, Andre removed recognizable images and narrative (storytelling) content from his work. Many of his sculptures lie directly on the floor or ground. He intended viewers to walk on some of the sculptures to enhance people’s relationship with the work.
Andre constructed his sculptures from everyday materials. Many of his sculptures are arrangements of bricks, cement blocks, or metal plates in geometrical gridlike patterns. Many of these sculptures were not executed in Andre’s studio, but sent out to a factory. Andre’s use of nontraditional materials forces viewers to reconsider what sculpture might look like. One of his earliest works, Equivalent VIII (1966), consists of 120 firebricks arranged in a long, low rectangle. Steel-Magnesium Plain (1969) consists of 36 steel and magnesium squares placed together on the floor in a grid.
Andre was born on Sept. 16, 1935, in Quincy, Massachusetts. In the late 1950’s, he worked in the studio of the American Abstract artist Frank Stella. Andre was influenced by the Abstract style of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Selections of Andre’s writings and interviews from 1959 to 2004 are collected in Cuts (2001).
See also Minimalism .
