Carl Andre
144th Travertine Integer
Date 1985
Medium 144 square stone blocks (travertine)
Dimensions 20 x 240 x 240 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-012
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The son of a shipyard worker, Carl Andre studied at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He travelled to England and saw the megaliths of Stonehenge, which exercised a definite influence over his work. He gave up painting for sculpture, creating objects influenced by Brancusi and by Frank Stella’s black paintings. In 1965, along with Robert Morris, Donald Judd and Larry Bell, he took part in the Shape and Structures exhibition organised at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. In 1970 he held a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The most noticeable characteristic of Carl Andre’s work is his breaking away from the verticality of sculpture. He summarized this invention in one famous phrase: ‘All I’m doing is putting Brancusi’s Endless Column on the ground instead of in the sky.’ In the Berardo Collection’s piece, composed of elements measuring 12 x 12 cm, one finds an almost mechanical principle in his work, dictating that the basic units should be of such a size that he could manipulate them himself. The physical act of manipulation is part of the pleasure of making a sculpture. J-FC