Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Carl Andre
American; 20th-century
Otterlo, The Netherlands: Kröller-Müller Museum
59%
43 Roaring Forty. 1988. Steel plates
A work of "baroque" minimalism like this is probably better than the first-gen stuff, if only because, by necessity of avoiding repetition, it's more than merely propositional, i.e., it doesn't satisfy itself by stating its intentions, but has to move in the direction of backing them up with forms. The basic idea of the piece is that it's an "image" in one-point perspective, but then actually it's real rectangles in real space receding from view linearly. Funny. But solvable as great art never is, and besides, such was Andre's schtick since the 60s. Where the work gains is in its scale, which goes beyond what's flatly necessary for the conceptual statement it's making and hauls it, incongruously, into the territory of monumental art. (TFS, 2026)