Carl Andre (b. 1935)

"Most of my works--certainly the successful ones--have been ones that are in a way causeways, they cause you to make your way along them or around them or to move the spectator over them. There should be no one place or even group of places where you should be"-Carl Andre.
(C. Andre, quoted in D. Bourdon, A Redefinition of Scultpure, New York, 1978, p. 16).

Fabricated in magnesium and tin, Carl Andre's iconic Mg Hexatin epitomizes the seismic shift that took place as the influence of Pop began to subside and make way for an entirely new form of artistic expression. Minimalism, as this new movement became known, suppressed the illusionism inherent in painting and sought to explore the possibilities of a hitherto unexplored medium, real space. Andre was at the forefront of this crusade, and his sculptures-comprised of systems of regular units, particularly square metal plates, placed in grid-like formations and lying flat on the ground-became synonymous with this radical new form of art. Like much his work, this piece rejects the notion of sculpture as an object mounted on a pedestal and viewed from a distance. Instead this is sculpture that is not carved, modeled or constructed--it is designed to interact, both physically and intellectually, with the viewer and their environment.