Carl Andre revolutionized sculpture in the 1960s with his flattened, modular works that abandoned verticality— and any accompanying allusions to architecture and the human body— in favor of creating what he famously called “sculpture as place,” explaining, “a place is an area within an environment which has been altered in such a way as to make the general environment more conspicuous.” “Rather than cut into the material,” Andre said, “I now use the material as the cut in space.” Composed of unjoined configurations of identical, mass-produced units, Andre’s works often lay flat on the gallery floor, inviting the viewer to walk directly upon them and radically allowing him or her to experience a sculpture from within the work itself. This exhibition will feature a focused group of these iconic, floor-based sculptures in copper, zinc, aluminum, slate, magnesium, lead, and steel, illustrating Andre’s nuanced exploration of the physical qualities of his materials.
Mnuchin Gallery
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Carl Andre
Fifth Copper Square . 2007