ANDRE, CARL

A central figure in post-war American art and Minimal Art, Carl Andre has had a significant impact on subsequent generations of sculptors. Born in 1935 in Quincy, Massachusetts, he was primarily self-taught and developed his artistic skills through close interaction with other artists. Frank Stella was particularly influential at the end of the 1950s, as was Constantin Brancusi's oeuvre, with a special focus on the "Endless Column". These encounters provided the impetus for the first body of work of large-format wooden sculptures, which eventually led to an innovative sculptural concept: the Element series. The rigorous simplicity of form with its strict geometry, as well as the concentration on industrially produced materials and their serial arrangement, made him one of the key figures of Minimal Art.

In the early 1960s, Andre earned a living as a conductor, shunter, and brakeman for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The formal aspects of the railway tracks appear as an associative element in his artistic concept. He arranges formalised basic elements such as wooden beams, iron plates or steel parts serially on the floor in a strictly reduced style, thus creating "horizontal sculptures". The sculpture is thus transformed from an object into a determination of place, which Carl Andre is able to arrange in subtle relationships with the viewer and the surrounding space. His first solo exhibition in New York (1965) was followed by his participation in the documenta (1968, 1982) and numerous major international exhibitions. Works by Carl Andre are exhibited in important museums worldwide, including the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Musées des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the SMAK Ghent and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Carl Andre lives and works in New York City.

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Works by this artist from our auctions.

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