Carl Andre Sculptures, Politics, 1959-1976

Abstract

This work is premised on the assumption that the excuses for not engaging properly with Carl Andre's corpus will not stand forever, and that his art is capable of sustaining considerably more attention than it has been afforded to date. Focusing predominantly on a select number of works from 1959 (when Andre moved to New York City) to 1976 (the year of the media orchestrated uproar over the Tate Gallery's purchase of Equivalent VIII) this dissertation assessesth e singular nature of his brand of late modernism. Much to the chagrin of many, few US artists of the 1960s aligned themselves so intimately with a Marxist cause or thought so carefully about art's commodity status. This project takes these facts seriously and attempts to approach the art accordingly. The works discussed include America Drill (1963), the Equivalents (1966), Lever (1966), Gold Field (1966), 5x 20 Altstadt Rectangle (1967), Joint (1968), Quincy Book (1973), Twelfth Copper Corner (1975) and Manet (1980)