Though he didn’t show in the US in the years between the murder of his wife Ana Mendieta and his indictment for said murder in 1985 and his trial, where he got off, in 1988, Carl Andre did have quite a busy European exhibition schedule.
In late 1986, he had two simultaneous gallery shows, in Brussels and at Konrad Fischer in Düsseldorf, where he showed sculptures made of elongated blocks of the material, “Belgian Blue Limestone,” that gave the shows their titles.
Those were followed almost immediately in 1987 by simultaneous museum retrospectives in the Netherlands, at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and the Haags Gemeentemuseum in, obviously, The Hague. There were eight more shows in the next 18 months.
But the point is, as the one-year mark since Carl Andre’s death approaches, Paula Cooper, who helped spring Andre from Rikers, is opening an expansive presentation of his work in both her gallery spaces. At the center of the largest space will be Breda (1986), a work comprising 101 blocks of blue Belgian limestone first exhibited in The Hague.
Like so many things from Carl Andre’s Indictment Era, the significance of this sculpture, and this show, goes without saying.
Previously: Carl Was Lucky To Have A Friend Like Frank
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