Carl Andre

In the mid-1960s Carl Andre began making three-dimensional works using materials such as wood, bricks, metal, and precut stone, ordered directly from suppliers. His commitment to utilizing standardized elements and modular, repeating units aligned his practice with Minimalism, yet he preferred to call himself a “post-studio artist” because he conceived and arranged his works on site, in gallery settings, private homes, or public spaces. Instead of viewing the sculptural material as something to be cut into, Andre determined rather to “use the material as the cut in space.” He rejected traditional sculpture’s vertical orientation and its relationship to upright human bodies. Horizontal works, he argued, “run along the earth,” like a road, and indeed his floor works are meant to be walked upon. In fact, the artist once described the road as his “ideal piece of sculpture.”

Twenty-Ninth Copper Cardinal is composed of twenty-nine copper plates arranged one after the other, extending outward from the base of a wall in a straight line along the floor. This narrow, flat sculpture belongs to a larger series of Copper Cardinal works, begun in 1973. The configuration of each work in the series—either linear, square, or rectangular—depends on the number of units designated for it. Prime numbers of units, such as twenty-nine, are always placed in a line, whereas divisible numbers of units are arranged in rectangles or squares. By allowing spectators to walk on his floor pieces, Andre extends the viewer’s perceptual and physical understanding of sculpture. When standing toward the middle of Twenty-Ninth Copper Cardinal, the sculpture can appear to fall out of view or to extend beyond its visible boundaries.