Minimal

Chinati Foundation newsletter vol 16
On Carl Andre:
Sobre Carl Andre:
8
50
Judd-like
Al estilo de Judd
J e ffr e y W e i s s
Andres Terms
Contents
57
Los trminos de Andre

20
Richard Deacon
L o n n Tay l o r
Fort D.A. Russell, Marfa

El Fuerte D.A. Russell, de Marfa
C a i tl i n M u rr ay
typetypetypetypetype:
Contenido
Carl Andres words
68
Las palabras de Carl Andre
Twentieth Century Engineering (1964)

Ingeniera del siglo veinte (1964)
E va M e y e r - H e rm a n n
30
Carl Andre: Place Matters

Carl Andre: La importancia del lugar
Donald Judd
71
J o s i a h M c El h e n y
Looking From: Platforms for looking at art

(after Donald Judd in Marfa, Texas)
Ver Desde: Plataformas para contemplar el arte
(al estilo de Donald Judd, en Marfa, Texas)
C o v e r p h o t o graph b y Ric h ard Deac on, se e pa ge 5 0 .
Artists In Residence, 20102011
88
Artistas en Residencia, 20102011
Marc Ganzglass
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet
Erin Shirreff
86
Benefit prints
Ediciones en beneficio de Chinati
Rupert Deese
Zoe Leonard
98
Acknowledgements, board,
staff, credits/colophon
Fin de semana en Chinati, 2011
Reconocimientos, mesa directiva,

89
personal, crditos/colofn
Staff News
Noticias de nuestro personal
Bill Morrison
Nick Herman
Chinati Weekend 2011
100
90
Educational Programs
Visitor Information
Informacin para visitantes
Programas educativos
back cover
92
94
T h o m a s K E L L EIN
Internships
A Message from the Director
Internados
Un Mensaja del Director
Membership, Funding
Membresa, financiamiento
Ca rl A nd re . Ch i n at i T h irt ee ne r , M a rfa , T x , 2010 . C h in at i F ou n d at io n .

All w ork s p g s. 2 5 1 b y C a rl A n dr e u nl e ss ot h erw i se n ot e d.
74
46 Roa r in g F o rt ie s, M ad r i d, 198 8. K on r a d F i sc h e r Ga ll er ie , D ss el d orf, G erm a n y.

Ch in at i F ou n d at ion Spe c ia l Ex h i b it io n, O c t o b er 2010 J u ly 2011.
T h e Si g n o f Im m o rta l it y ( Da D a F or g er ie s) , 196 3. T h e J u d d F ou n dat i on .
Zi n c Rib b o n , A n twerp, 196 9. S ol om o n R . G u g g e nh e im M u se u m , N ew Y ork , Pa n z a C ollec t io n , 19 91.
Andres
Terms
J e ffr e y W e i s s
Los trminos de Andre
35 T i m b er L in e, 1968 . M u s eu m f r M o de r n e K u ns t, F r a nkfu rt a m M a in , G e rm a n y.
Jeffrey Weiss Los trminos de Andre
Andres forms are sometimes identified by the artist with, on the one
hand, tools, principles, or structural
prototypes of building, and, on the
other, landscape space. Titles function as cues: Lever, Pyre, Redan,
Palisade; Plain, Dike, Flanders Field,
and so on. Moreover, early on Andre
identified two figures, the lake and
the road, to describe the initial shift
from standing construction (with timbers) to flat extension (the bricks and
plates).1 Both figures, which characterize the work as being not object
but place, 2 belong to landscape,
although the road represents an incursion; in effect, it is a functional cut.
The second floor-bound installation
that Andre made, Equivalents IVIII
of 1966, was named for a long series
of cloud photographs by Alfred Stieglitz (produced from 1923 to 1931).3
It is, we often say, the permuting
nature of the photographs to which
Andre was drawn: the original installation, at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery
in New York, consisted of eight works
of varying configurations, each composed of two tiers of sixty cast sandlime bricks. But it would also be apt
to claim for the photographssmall,
largely horizonless images of cloud
formations the relevance of orientation: the images posit a potentially rotating camera eye; indeed, in
multiple instances, Stieglitz chose to
rotate the photographic prints themselves, reproducing (or exhibiting)
them in two or more positions. 4 As
Andres model, they might be said
to make looking upsky-gazinga
condition of dialectical significance
for looking down, which was, with
Andre, sculptures radical turn. This
relation might be further expressed
through opposed but reciprocal sensations of weightlessness and weight
La escultura de Carl Andre es estructuralmente dependiente de la cuadrcula y

la fila, y en la regularidad de elementos
individuales. Estos elementos, o partculas, se presentan dentro de cierta
obra, siempre idnticos en forma y tamao, colocados pero nunca unidos ni
Carl Andres sculpture is structurally

dependent on the grid and the row,
and on the regularity of individual
elements. These elements, or particles, are, within a given work,
always identical in shape and size;
placed but never joined or attached
(a property referred to as clastic),
they rarely exceed dimensions that
would make them impossible for one
person to move. A works material
qualities t he perceivable weight
and variegated surface of the metal
or wood and the slight unevenness of
fit from one element to the next, and,
in the case of works that invite physical contact, the way plates can be felt
to shift beneath ones feetcontribute
to a deeper apprehension of it. We
dont pointedly address such things
so much as we detect them: they represent the works secondary affect. In
identifying Andres work (as we generally do) with phenomenological encounter, we must square its radicality
of form with the degree to which it
presents itself almost as pure medium.
Then, given its material irreducibility,
its explicit mass, and its lateral articulation of empty space, we gradually
recognize that the work serves as
ground (literally and figuratively) for
what could be its primary subject, the
verticality, weight, and equilibrium of
the beholder.
adheridos (una propiedad a la que uno

se refiere como clstico), raras veces
exceden dimensiones que haran imposible que una persona pudiera moverlas.
Las cualidades del material de una obra
el peso perceptible y la superficie variable del metal o la madera y la ligera
desigualdad de ensamble de un elemento con el siguiente, y en el caso de obras
que invitan un contacto fsico, la manera
como puede sentirse que las placas se
mueven bajo los pies de uno contribuyen a una aprensin ms profunda del
mismo. No nos fijamos en tales cosas;
ms bien las detectamos: representan el
afecto secundario de la obra. Al identificar la obra de Andre (como generalmente lo hacemos) con un encuentro
fenomenolgico, debemos compaginar
su radicalidad de forma con el grado en
que se presenta a s mismo casi como
un puro medio. Luego, dada su irreductibilidad material, su masa explcita y
su articulacin lateral de espacio vaco,
gradualmente reconocemos que la obra
funciona como el suelo o el fondo (literal y figuradamente) para lo que podra
ser su sujeto primario, la verticalidad,
el peso y el equilibrio de la persona que
la contempla.
Andre a veces identifica sus formas, por
una parte, con herramientas, principios
o prototipos estructurales de construccin, y, por otra, con un espacio de jardinera artstica. Los ttulos funcionan
como claves: Lever, Pyre, Redan, Palisade; Plain, Dike, Flanders Field, y as
sucesivamente. Asimismo, en su poca
temprana, Andre identific dos figuras,
el lago y el camino, para describir el
cambio inicial de una construccin en
pie (con maderos) a una extensin plana
(con ladrillos y placas). 1 Las dos figuras,
las cuales caracterizan la obra no como
objeto. sino como lugar, 2 pertenecen
al paisaje, aunque el camino represente una incursin; en efecto, es un corte
funcional. La segunda instalacin fija al
piso que Andre hizo, Equivalents I-VIII
de 1966, se nombr as por una larga
serie de fotografas de nubes tomadas
por Alfred Stieglitz entre 1923 y 1931. 3
Es, se dice a menudo, la naturaleza permutante de las fotografas que atrajo el
inters de Andre: la instalacin original,
en la Galera Tibor de Nagy en Nueva
York, consista en ocho obras de configuraciones variadas, cada una compuesta de dos capas superpuestas de
sesenta ladrillos de arena vaciada. Pero
tambin sera factible sostener que las
fotografas pequeas, en su mayora
imgenes de formaciones de nubes sin
horizonte poseen relevancia de orientacin: las imgenes postulan un ojo de
cmara con una rotacin potencial; en
verdad, en mltiples ocasiones, Stieglitz
decidi girar las impresiones fotogrficas mismas, reproducindolas (o exhibindolas) en dos o ms posiciones. 4
Como modelo de Andre, podra decirse
que pudieran hacer el mirar hacia arriba
o lanzar una mirada hacia el cielo
una condicin de importancia dialctica
para mirar hacia abajo, lo cual era, con
la escultura de Andre, un cambio radical. Esta relacin podra expresarse a
travs de sensaciones de ligereza y de
peso y, como resultado, la influencia de
experiencia perceptiva en la sensacin
corporal de uno mismo. Que algo as
como la oposicin recproca pertenece
a la lgica de la obra temprana de Andre, est tambin apoyado por un caso
obvio: Eight Cuts, el cual se exhibi en
Cu t s, Ottawa , C a na d a , 1979 ( re ma d e, d estroyed ) . Pa ul a C o ope r Ga ll e ry,

Ne w York; Urs Ra u sm lle r, Switze rl a nd .
la Galera Dwan en marzo de l967, una

instalacin de pared a pared consistente en 1,472 bloques de concreto, en la
cual la configuracin de Equivalents se
aproxim como una serie de espacios en
blanco; en otras palabras, la relacin del
espacio positivo al negativo en Tibor de
Nagy fue revertido (los bloques se instalaron en una sola capa; no se apilaron
como se hizo con los ladrillos en Dwan,
una invitacin abierta para pisarse y
cruzarse; los espacios, o cortes eran
de dos pulgadas de profundidad).
Es posible que mltiples posiciones
sean igualmente correctas? sta era
una nueva pregunta para la fotografa, con respecto a la fotografa como
imagen y como objeto. Andre consolid
10
Jeffrey Weiss Andres Terms
mented, in turn, by the rotation of the

photographic print. While the image
shows no ground, the upward gaze
remains a grounded form of seeing;
for the cloud-watcher, turning in place
results not in a change of cardinal direction (as it does when the gaze is
fixed outward, on the horizon), but
in a functionally arbitrary clockwise
or counterclockwise shift. Just as it
releases the photograph from the
conventions of directionality, such a
principleapplied to the downward
gaze r adicalizes Andres installation. His Equivalents (and much of
his subsequent work) is given to no
proper or fixed orientation, not only
because the observer is mobile (making his way through and around the
work), but because the disposition
of the work itself w hile intensely
grounded in a material sense is,
again, directionally speaking, otherwise unfixed. (That direction is at
stake in Andres work is confirmed
by a series that he calls Cardinals,
which consist of single rows of metal
plates, or single plates, that abut a
wall and project into the room, seeming to point, in the directional sense.)
For Stieglitz, the burden of mobility
is transferred from the observerthe
cloud-gazerto the photograph; for
Andre, the two forms of mobility coexist.
While the photographic record is explicitly foreign to Andres work, the
camera eye is useful to his project,
which, literalist by nature and informed by a premise of unmediated
seeing, nonetheless possesses its own
devices and conceits. In this regard,
Stiegltizs cloud studies propose a
la experiencia en una para la obra

misma y para el obser vador mvil. Las
instalaciones colocadas en lugares bajos
raramente nos indican de qu manera
nos debemos mover o voltear la cara,
o dnde nos debemos parar. Mientras,
histricamente, el objeto escultural es
algo que desde hace mucho tiempo le
hemos podido caminar por encima o
a su alrededor, se entiende que posee
una ventaja ideal. 5 Con las cuadrculas
cuadradas y las placas de metal, Andre
produce obras sobre las cuales podemos
caminar, obliterando el objeto cultural
per se y dispersndolo, convirtindolo
en un punto sin enfoque. La escultura se
vuelve el lugar. Las instalaciones bajo techo generalmente corresponden a la forma rectilnea de la mayora de las salas.
Al hacerlo as, ocupan el espacio del piso
cortando o extendindose a travs del
mismo. Dada su regularidad atomizada,
se encuentran sin puntos de referencia, y
mayormente evitan establecer un punto
ptimo de perspectiva 6: Las obras no son
desorientadoras sino no-orientadoras.
Tales trminos se introducen mediante
Equivalents, aunque esa obra retenga
un vestigio del objeto escultural convencional, en el sentido de que la altura de los ladrillos sir ve para distinguir
claramente cada equivalente cada
grupo de dos capas de ladrillos desde
el suelo en trminos esculturales. A mediados de los sesentas, sin embargo, la
compresin de Equivalents era extrema.
Exhibidas juntas como si se tratara de
una sola obra y como una instalacin
que capta una sala entera sus ocho
elementos jalan nuestra mirada hacia
abajo mientras nos animan a movernos,
a cambiar nuestro punto de vista en forma aleatoria.
La cmara de Stieglitz es relevante: disparando hacia el cielo fija la inclinacin

de la cabeza (arriba, ahora, ms que
hacia abajo) mientras que elimina la
orientacin en la mayora de los otros
sentidos un grupo de preceptos que se
aumenta, a su vez, por la rotacin de la
impresin fotogrfica. Mientras que la
imagen no muestre ningn suelo o fondo, la mirada hacia arriba permanece
como una forma con toque a tierra de mirar: para el que observa las nubes, voltearse sin desplazarse resulta no en un
cambio de direccin cardinal (como se
hace cuando la mirada est fija hacia lo
lejos, en el horizonte), sino en un arbitrario movimiento como el de las manecillas
del reloj, o en sentido contrario. Justo
cuando libera la fotografa de las convenciones de direccionalidad, tal principio aplicado a la mirada hacia abajo
radicaliza la instalacin de Andre. Su
obra Equivalents (y gran parte de su
obra posterior) no posee ninguna orientacin correcta o fija, no solamente
porque el observador se encuentra mvil
(abrindose paso entre y alrededor de la
obra), sino debido a la disposicin de la
obra misma, pues mientras se encuentra
intensamente fija en un sentido material,
carece de una direccin fija. (El hecho
de que esa direccin entra en juego en
la obra de Andre, est confirmado por
una serie que el artista llama Cardinales, que consisten en filas de placas
metlicas, o placas sencillas, las cuales
colindan con el muro y se proyectan en la
sala, apuntando, al parecer, en sentido
direccional). Para Stieglitz, la carga de
la movilidad se transfiere del obser vador el que mira las nubes hacia la
fotografa; para Andre, las dos formas
de movilidad coexisten.
Equ ival en t s I-VIII, Tib or de N a gy Ga ll ery, Ne w York, 1966.
and, as a result, the influence of perceptual experience on ones bodily

sensation of self. That something like
reciprocal opposition belongs to the
logic of Andres early work is also
supported by an obvious case: Eight
Cuts, which was shown at the Dwan
Gallery in March 1967, a wall to wall
installation of 1,472 concrete block
capstones in which the configuration
of Equivalents was approximated as
a series of empty spaces: in other
words, the relation of positive to negative space at Tibor de Nagy was reversed (the capstones were installed
in a single layer, not stacked like the
bricks at Dwan, an open invitation
to be tread upon and traversed; the
spaces, or cuts, were two inches
deep).
Can multiple positions be equally
correct? This was a new question for
photography, with respect to the photograph as both image and object.
Andre made it one for sculpturefor
the work itself and for the mobile observer. Andres low installations rarely tell us which way to move or face,
or where to stand. While, historically,
the sculptural object is something we
have long been able to walk around,
it is largely understood to possess an
ideal vantage.5 With the square grids
of metal plates, Andre produces work
that we walk around in, obliterating the sculptural object per se and
dispersing it, making it non-focal.
Sculpture becomes place. The indoor
installations generally correspond to
the rectilinearity of most rooms. In so
doing, they occupy floor space by
cutting through or spreading across
it. Given their atomized regularity,
they are without landmarks, and they
largely avoid establishing an optimal
vantage point 6: the works are not
dis-orienting, but non-orienting. Such
terms are first introduced by Equivalents, even though that work retains a
vestige of the conventional sculptural
object in that the height of the bricks
serves to clearly distinguish each
equivalent e ach two-tier group
of bricksfrom the floor in sculptural
terms. During the mid-60s, however,
the compression of Equivalents was
extreme. Shown together as a single
work a nd as an installation that
engages an entire room its eight
elements exercise a downward pull
on our gaze while motivating circuitousness, our undirected mobility of
position or vantage.
Stiegltizs camera is relevant: shooting skyward fixes the tilt of the head
(up, now, rather than down) while
unfixing orientation in most other respectsa set of precepts that is aug-
11
photographic condition for Andres

sculpture, one manifested by the terms
of directed versus undirected seeing,
something that further expresses itselfpost-Equivalentsthrough the
agency of the grid, the ground plan,
and the cut.
Andre may have derived some of his
terminology from the photographer
Hollis Frampton, a close friend, who
described the photograph as a spatio-temporal cut in his dialogues
with Andre of the early 60s.7 But the
cut, which, in Andres work, represents a transitive intervention (a cut
through medium or space) that is
also a perceptual one, was figured
by the orthogonal lines of one-point
perspective, a fictive system for the
pictorial projection of actual space.
Perhaps the inheritance of that systemwe might say its residue, given
its presumed irrelevance to a literalist artcan be detected in the coordinates of the grid, which structure
much of Andres floor-bound work,
and in the long straight line, his other
common form (speaking of certain
timber works and of works composed
of rows of plates that run through
multiple rooms). These coordinates,
which derive from the modularity of
the work, imply structured or controlled seeing. But nothing is done to
exercise that controlto maintain it
as a condition of viewing.8 Even a 40foot timber line, which, plunging into
space, might be said to enforce a onedirectional encounter, can be crossed
or walked over or viewed as a lateral a s well as recessional c ut.
Perspective is, then, converted from
a mediating system for pictorial projection into a plan for the impulses of
unfixed seeing: the works recession
is actual and, as cut (and, in the case
of the plates, as grid), it maps real
spacethe space of the ground. Yet,
in that we may walk on and across
the metal plates, the works material
nature can be said to enact its own
form of mediation: our encounter with
it is direct, and for this very reason
it comes between us and the space
of the room, thereby intensifying our
tactile and perceptual sensation of
standing or moving within the actuality of the site.9
To speak of visuality in Andres floorbound work o f linear perspective
and fixed versus unfixed vantage,
and of a photographic condition for
multiple orientations for seeing i s
to speak of models that are counterintuitive in their relevance to the sculpture. Yet they openly establish some
of Andres key terms, suggesting that
Andres materialism is itself one of a
number of conventions and systems

at stake in the works strategic implications. Andres early poems further
show that languagewhich can function both as system and as sculptural
mediumwas foundational to the formation of the sculptural work.10 More
specifically, one theory of the high
modernist application of language
(in the work of Ezra Pound, among
others, who was of particular interest
to Andre) might be said to represent
a model.
In 1962, Hugh Kenner, a prolific critical historian of the work of Pound as
well as Samuel Beckett and James
Joyce, published Art in a Closed
Field (an essay to which we are
brought by Andre himself, who
quotes from it in a letter of 1964).11
The closed field in question is a figure that Kenner draws from general
number theory, according to which
a fieldas mathematicians apply
itcontains a set of elements and a
set of laws for dealing with these elements. In Kenners essay, the closed
field facilitates an account of language in the modernist novel, where
language is deployed as a finite
number of elements to be combined
according to fixed rules. He traces
this in fiction back to Gustave Flaubert
(who, for example, in preparation for
writing Madame Bovary, made lists
of clichs and proposed to arrange
them in alphabetical order, by key
words, defining, so, the closed field
of popular discourse, the pieces of
which are phrases as the writers
pieces are single words). But Kenner
grounds his analysis in Samuel Johnsons invention of the modern dictionary. It is the principle of lexicography,
Kenner posits, that first characterized
language as a closed field: the dictionary takes discourse apart into
separate words and arranges them in
alphabetical order. It implies that the
number of words at our disposal is
finite. Behind the dictionary, as Kenner observes, lies the printing press
and the typewriter keyboard, with
which we have at our disposal less
certainly the possibly infinite reaches
of the human spirit than twenty-six
letters to permute. Language in the
modernist novel, exemplified for Kenner above all by Joyces Ulysses, is,
then, less a function of discourseof
spoken language as it reflects lived
experiencethan of a set of pieces
and some procedures for arranging
them. Joyces proclivity, say, for published directories (street directories
and train schedules, for example) as
source material extends to the very
structure of the novel, which is orga-
Mientras que el rcord fotogrfico es explcitamente extrao a la obra de Andre,

el ojo de la cmara es til para su proyecto, el cual, siendo literalista por naturaleza e informado por una premisa de
miradas sin mediar, sin embargo poseen
sus propios artefactos y presunciones.
Por lo que a esto se refiere, los estudios
sobre las nubes de Stieglitz proponen
una condicin fotogrfica para la escultura de Andre, que se manifiesta por los
trminos de miradas dirigidas versus no
dirigidas, algo que se expresa ms all
post-Equivalents a travs del uso de la
cuadrcula, el plano del suelo y el corte.
Puede ser que Andre haya derivado algunos de sus trminos del fotgrafo Hollis Frampton, un amigo cercano, quien
describi la fotografa como un corte
espacio-temporal en sus dilogos con
Andre de principios de los sesentas 7
Pero el corte, que en la obra de Andre
representa una inter vencin transitiva
(un corte a travs del medio o el espacio)
que es tambin de percepcin, se perfil
por las lneas ortogonales de la perspectiva de un solo punto, un sistema ficticio
para la proyeccin pictrica del espacio
real. Tal vez la herencia de ese sistema
podramos decir su residuo, dada su
supuesta irrelevancia ante un arte literalista puede ser detectada en las
coordenadas de la cuadrcula, las cuales estructuran gran parte de la obra de
piso de Andre, y en la lnea larga y recta,
su otra forma comn (hablando de ciertas obras hechas de maderos y de obras
compuestas de filas de placas que corren
por mltiples salas). Estas coordenadas,
que derivan de la modularidad de su
obra, implican miradas estructuradas o
controladas. Pero no se hace nada para
ejercer ese control para mantenerlo
como una condicin de mirar. 8 Aun una
fila de madera de 40 pies, la cual se lanza hacia el espacio, podra exigir un encuentro unidireccional, puede cruzarse
o caminarse por encima o ser vista como
corte lateral o recesivo. La perspectiva se
convierte, entonces, de un sistema mediador para proyeccin pictrica en un
plan para los impulsos de mirar lo que no
se encuentra fijo: la recesin de la obra
es de verdad, y como corte (y, en el caso
de las placas, como cuadrcula), traza el
mapa del espacio real el espacio del
suelo. Sin embargo, ya que podamos
cruzar y caminar sobre las placas de metal, la naturaleza del material de la obra
puede decirse que establece su propia
forma de meditacin: nuestro encuentro
con ella es directo, y por esta razn se
interpone entre nosotros y el espacio de
la sala, intensificando nuestra sensacin
tctil y perceptual al estar de pie o en
movimiento dentro del sitio. 9
Hablar de la visualidad en las obras de
piso Andre de perspectiva lineal y fija
12
versus la perspectiva sin fijar, y de una

condicin fotogrfica para mltiples
orientaciones de la mirada es hablar
de modelos que son contraintuitivos en
relacin con la escultura. Sin embargo,
establecen abiertamente algunos de los
trminos claves de Andre, sugiriendo
que el materialismo de Andre es en s
uno de varios discursos y sistemas en
juego en las implicaciones estratgicas
de la obra. Los primeros poemas de Andre nos muestran, adems, el lenguaje
el cual puede funcionar como sistema o
como medio escultural fue fundamental
a la formacin de la obra escultural. 10
Ms especficamente, una teora de la
aplicacin modernista alta del lenguaje
(en la obra de Ezra Pound, entre otras,
que fue de especial inters para Andre)
podra decirse que representa un modelo.
En l962, Hugh Kenner, un prolfico historiador crtico de la obra de Pound y de
Samuel Beckett y James Joyce, public
Art in a Closed Field (un ensayo al
cual el mismo Andre llama la atencin,
al citarlo en una carta fechada 1964). 11
El campo cerrado en cuestin es una
figura que Kenner saca de la teora numrica general, de acuerdo con la cual
un campo segn los matemticos
lo aplican contiene un juego de elementos y un juego de leyes para tratar
con dichos elementos. En el ensayo de
Kenner, el campo cerrado facilita una
explicacin del lenguaje en una novela
modernista, donde el lenguaje se despliega como un nmero finito de elementos para ser combinados de acuerdo con reglas fijas. El autor encuentra
antecedentes de esto en la ficcin de
Gustave Flaubert (quien, por ejemplo,
en preparacin para su obra Madame
Bovar y, hizo listas de clichs y se propuso alfabetizarlos, por palabras claves, definiendo as el campo cerrado del
discurso popular, los componentes de la
cual son frases, al igual que las unidades
del escritor son palabras). Pero Kenner
basa su anlisis en el invento de Samuel
Johnson, el diccionario moderno. Es el
principio de lexicografa, afirma Kenner,
ese primer lenguaje caracterizado como
campo cerrado: el diccionario divide
el discurso en palabras separadas y las
dispone en orden alfabtico. Esto implica que el nmero de palabras a nuestra
disposicin es finito. Tras el diccionario,
como obser va Kenner, estn la imprenta
y el teclado de la mquina de escribir,
con los cuales tenemos a nuestra disposicin los alcances posiblemente infinitos
del espritu humano realizables a partir
de veintisis letras para permutar. El
lenguaje en la novela modernista, ejemplificada para Kenner principalmente
por Ulises, de Joyce, es, entonces, menos
una funcin del discurso del lenguaje
in Peirces text on a file card, treating them as atoms or particles, and

then distributing them in lists according to an application of the natural
number systemprime numbers.
From Peirces text, he explains, I
chose out of hundreds of words the
twenty-six which seemed most powerfully significant. These I assigned to
the primes between one and one-hundred. The composite numbers in the
same series received corresponding
groups of prime factors. This system
was executed using five vast charts;
numerically-based word combinations were established in this way
and then distributed according to a
hablado segn refleja experiencias vividas que de un juego de piezas y

algunos procedimientos para ordenarlas. La predileccin de Joyce, digamos,
por los directorios publicados (directorios de calles e itinerarios de trenes, por
ejemplo) como fuente de informacin
se extiende a la misma estructura de la
novela, la cual se organiza de acuerdo
con el inventario ms comn de todos,
las horas del da y los meses del ao.
La figura principal de Kenner es la lista:
aducir listas, enumerar o implicar la
enumeracin de sus elementos, y luego
permutar y combinar estos elementos;
esto, segn parece implicar Joyce, es el
ltimo recurso de la ficcin cmica.
de formas no sintcticas en la inscripcin

del lenguaje (y la hoja de papel como si
fuera el suelo). La cuadrcula, a su vez
aclara ciertas aplicaciones del lenguaje
como forma y sentido que corresponden a los preceptos iterativos del campo
cerrado.
Las implicaciones de esto pueden demostrarse a travs de la propia explicacin
de Andre sobre la composicin de su
poema King Philips War Primer. El
material para el poema proviene de un
libro titulado History and Genealogy, de
E.W. Peirce, que trata de la guerra entre
los colonos ingleses y los nativos americanos (en la nativa Nueva Inglaterra de
Andre) en 1675-76. Tal y como Andre lo
explic en l963: No quise escribir un
poema narrativo ni una historia. Lo que
quera era el aislamiento de los trminos
de la Guerra del Rey Felipe y luego una
operacin adecuada para recombinar
los trminos de tal manera que se pudiera producir un poema. Su mtodo
le vino, nos cuenta, una noche mientras
estaba en el trabajo en los patios del Ferrocarril de Greenville en Nueva Jersey,
Alfred Stie g litz , E q u iva l e nt , 19 2 9 . T h e Alfr e d Stie g l itz C o lle ct io n,

gift o f G e or g ia O K e e ffe , 19 4 9 ; T h e P h il ip s C o lle ct io n, Wa s h ing t o n , D .C .
nized according to the most common

inventory of all, the hours of the day
and months of the year. Kenners chief
figure is the list: to adduce lists, to
enumerate or imply the enumeration
of their elements, and then to permute
and combine these elements; this,
Joyce seems to imply, is the ultimate
recourse of comic fiction.
Given the foundational significance
of permuting sequences of form in art
of the period, the relevance of Kenners closed field to the emergence of
Andres work would seem clear. The
radical structural and material nature
of the work is understood to have
been grounded in modernist formin
Andres close interest in the sculpture of Brancusi, for example, and
in formal principles of Russian Constructivism.12 Andres poems actually
predate his leveling of sculptural form
and his sculptural dependence on the
grid. When he later ascribed the grid
to the mechanical constraints of the
typewriter, on which he composed
his poems in grid formation (words
distributed in rows and columns), he
identified sculptural configuration
with the imposition of non-syntactic
form on the inscription of language
(and the sheet as ground). The grid,
in turn, figures certain applications of
languageas form and sensethat
correspond to the iterative precepts of
the closed field.
The implications of this can be demonstrated through Andres own account of the composition of his poem
King Philips War Primer. Material for the poem was drawn from a
book called History and Genealogy
by E.W. Peirce, which concerns the
war between English colonists and
native Americans (in Andres native
New England) in 167576. As Andre
explained in 1963, I did not want to
write a narrative poem or a history.
What I wanted was the isolation of
the terms of King Philips War and
then a suitable operation for recombining the terms in such a way as to
produce a poem. His method came
to him, he tells us, one night on the
job at the Greenville Railroad Yard
in New Jersey, where he worked during the early 60s as a brakeman for
Pennsylvania Railroad. The chief factor was the process of drilling cars,
which are managed as identical autonomous modular elements attached
to form a row: I quite suddenly realized that the only dissociation complete enough for my purposes was
the reduction of Peirces text into its
smallest constituent elements: the
isolation of each word. He thus proceeded to record each of the words
donde trabaj durante principios de los

sesentas como garrotero en el Ferrocarril de Pensilvania. El factor principal
era el proceso de manejar los vagones,
los cuales se manipulan como elementos
modulares autnomos idnticos unidos
para formar una fila: De repente me
di cuenta de que la nica disociacin
lo suficientemente completa para mis
propsitos era la reduccin del texto de
Peirce a sus elementos constituyentes
ms pequeos: el aislamiento de cada
palabra. Luego, el artista procedi a
anotar cada una de las palabras del texto de Peirce en una tarjeta de archivo,
tratndolas como si fueran tomos o
partculas, y luego distribuyndolas en
listas de acuerdo con la aplicacin del
sistema numrico natural nmeros primos. Del texto de Peirce, explica, Escog de cientos de palabras, las veintisis
spacing system that would allow the

poem to be, as Andre said, sounded
by readers.13
King Philips War Primer affords
purchase on the sculptural closed
field: on enumeration and permutation in Andres sculptural work beginning in 1966, which is premised on
a finite number of elements within a
scheme of limitations and strict procedures. That such a scheme produces
work that functions through faculties
of perception and sensation brings us
to Kenners larger claim: the closed
field is not simply a conceptual exercise or game (even as the first business of the critic is the recovery of
the rules of the game that is laid before him); that, more, it represents
systems that do turn out to describe
Dado el significado fundamental de secuencias permutantes de la forma en el

arte del periodo, la relevancia del campo cerrado de Kenner para la emergencia de la obra de Andre parecera clara.
La naturaleza material estructural y radical de su obra se cree que se bas en la
forma modernista en el gran inters de
Andre por la escultura de Brancusi, por
ejemplo, y en los principios formales del
constructivismo ruso. 12 Los poemas de
Andre antedatan su nivelacin de forma
escultural y su dependencia escultural
de la cuadrcula. Cuando ms tarde
atribuy a la cuadrcula las limitaciones
mecnicas de la mquina de escribir, en
la cual compuso sus poemas en forma de
cuadrcula (palabras distribuidas en filas y columnas), Andre identific la configuracin escultural con la imposicin
13
que me parecieron ms poderosamente

significativas. stas se las asign a los
nmeros primarios entre el uno y el
cien. Los nmeros no primos en la misma serie recibieron grupos correspondientes de nmeros primos. El sistema
se ejecut usando cinco enormes tablas;
se establecieron as combinaciones de
palabras con base numrica y luego se
distribuyeron de acuerdo a un sistema
considerando el espacio que permitira
que el poema fuera, como dijo Andre,
pronunciado por los lectores. 13
King Philips War Primer elucida el
campo escultural cerrado en cuanto
a la enumeracin y la permutacin en
la obra escultural de Andre a partir de
1966, que involucra un nmero finito de
elementos dentro de un esquema de lmites y procedimientos estrictos. El hecho
than form as an operative term. As

such, the grid is not only an imposed
structure (or image); it is a readymade configuration that lends itself
to a transparent installation process.
In that Andres elements h is particlesare not attached to one another, but simply set down (as Mel
Bochner wrote in 1967, what holds
them together, the principle means
of cohesion, is weight [gravity] []
the use of no adhesives or complicated joints 17), his work always implicates dispersion. That is, the grid is
something like an interruption of the
condition that the multiple elements
of the work otherwise occupy before
de que tal esquema produce obras que

funcionan a travs de la percepcin y
la sensacin nos conduce a la premisa
global de Kenner: que el campo cerrado
no es simplemente un ejercicio conceptual o un juego (aun cuando explica que
el primer quehacer del crtico consiste
en recuperar las reglas del juego que
se le plantea) y que, por aadidura,
representa sistemas que no describen
el mundo familiar, sino desde un ngulo
cuya existencia no habramos sospechado. [] De una manera o de otra,
el campo cerrado, cuando es enfocado
por el arte, se convierte en ese punto de
concentracin que, mientras se hace ms
pequeo, concentra con mayor intensi-
que las fotografas de nubes no llegan

a establecer una tipologa rigurosa, s
aplican, aunque algo paradjicamente,
las operaciones finitas de un inventario
a un fenmeno que, dentro de la historia
de la esttica, pertenece a una clase de
acontecimientos naturales caracterizados como sin forma (y que se supone
estimulan la imaginacin y la animan a
inventar una imagen pictrica. 16 De manera similar, el principio de la rotacin
la posicin variable de la cmara y la
fotografa tambin funciona como una
lista aducida de opciones permutantes
con respecto a la orientacin. As, los
Equivalentes de Stieglitz representan
una oposicin dinmica frente a lo contingente y lo fijo. Quiero con esto dar a
entender que Andre no slo opona abajo y arriba la mirada hacia abajo que
suscita la escultura de piso, en contraste
con la mirada hacia arriba que requiere
la contemplacin de las nubes, una vuelta invertida pero recproca , sino que
activ un segundo enrevesamiento, en
el que se contrapone la forma (o mejor,
la formacin) ocho iteraciones de una
configuracin de 120 ladrillos configu-

the familiar world after all, but from

an angle the existence of which we
should never have expected. []
One way or another, when it is focused by art, the closed field becomes
that point of concentration which in
proportion as it grows smaller concentrates more intensely the radiant energies of all that we feel and
know.14
We do not have to accept Kenners
universalist conclusion in order to
acknowledge that system and sensation are both at stake in the Stieglitz
Equivalents, which certainly qualifies as an expression of the closed
field. Stielglitz did not, in fact, apply
the word equivalent to describe a
permuting system, but to denote instead the capacity of the natural objectthe cloud, in this caseto serve
as an analogue for states of psyche
or internal life.15 That Andre (surely
with Framptons help) recognized the
cloud series as a case of permutation
reflects the fact that Stieglitzs iterative
pursuit of the cloud was an inventory
exercise. Indeed, while the cloud photographs stop short of establishing a
rigorous typology, they somewhat
paradoxically apply the finite operations of a recorded inventory to a phenomenon that, in the history of aesthetics, belongs to a class of natural
occurrences characterized as formless (and thereby said to stimulate
the imagination towards the invention
of a pictorial image).16 Similarly, the
principle of rotation the variable
position of the camera and the photograph a lso functions as an adduced list of permuting choices with
respect to orientation. In this way,
Stieglitzs Equivalents represents a
dynamic opposition of the contingent
and the fixed. Here I mean to suggest
that Andre did not just oppose down
to upthe downward gaze solicited
by floor-bound sculpture being, in
relation to the upward gaze of the
cloud photograph, an inverted but
reciprocal turn; he also activated a
second reversal, opposing form (or
better, formation) e ight iterations
of a two-tiered grid-configuration of
120 bricks t o formlessness. In this
respect (and again, given Andres acknowledgment of Stieglitz), the closed
field and the contingent image together establish the conditions of Andres
early sculptural work: their mutual
status as categories of form that obviate conventional image-making
(either representational or abstract)
grounds the work in an operation of
resistance.
As a kind of model, the cloud allows us to identify formation rather
radas en cuadrcula de dos capas superpuestas a la ausencia de la forma. En

este sentido (y, nuevamente, porque Andre reconoce la influencia de Stieglitz), el
campo cerrado y la imagen contingente
establecen en su conjunto las condiciones de las primeras obras esculturales de
Andre, pues ambos constituyen categoras de la forma que quedan al margen
de los mtodos tradicionales de hacer
imgenes (tanto representacionales
como abstractas) y convierten a estas
obras en manifestaciones de resistencia.
La nube, si se toma como una especie de
modelo, nos permite manejar el trmino
formacin en lugar de forma. Por eso,
la cuadrcula no es slo una estructura
(o imagen) impuesta, sino una configuracin ya hecha (readymade), que se
presta a un proceso de instalacin trans-
and after installation, dispersion being, in a manner of speaking, the

principle according to which the work
is eventually de-installed.18 Andre was
among the first artists to investigate
the scatter piece, a category of
sculptural anti-form. Yet, while he applied the principle of scatter only a
handful of times, it is not anomalous
in his work; it is, in certain respects,
intrinsic to his grids and rows, which
might be said to have only temporarily settled into place as such. To be
sure, the grid, which does belong to
the history of modernist abstraction,
occupied a privileged position in art
after 1960, when it came to serve as
the predominant matrix of non-compositional form. But Andres grid is
as much assembled as drawn (even
dad las energas radiantes de todo lo

que sentimos y sabemos. 14
No tenemos que aceptar la conclusin
universalista de Kenner para reconocer
que tanto el sistema como la sensacin
entran en juego en los Equivalents, de
Stieglitz, una obra que ciertamente constituye una expresin del campo cerrado.
Stieglitz de hecho no utiliz la palabra
equivalente para describir un sistema en permutacin, sino para denotar
la capacidad del objeto natural en
este caso, la nube para ser vir como
anlogo de los estados squicos o de la
vida interna. 15 El hecho de que Andre
(seguramente con ayuda de Frampton)
reconoca la serie de nubes como un caso
de permutacin indica que el inters
iterativo de Stieglitz en la nube era un
ejercicio de inventario. Por cierto, aun14
parente. Las obras de Andre implican

siempre dispersin, ya que los elementos
que manipula, sus partculas, no estn
sujetos los unos a los otros, sino que se
dan simplemente (Mel Bochner escribi
en 1967 que lo que los une, su principal
mecanismo de cohesin, es el peso [la
gravedad] [] sin emplear adhesivos o
junturas complicadas 17),
Es decir, la cuadrcula es algo as como
una interrupcin de la condicin en que
se hallan los mltiples elementos de la
obra antes y despus de la instalacin,
y as se puede decir que la dispersin
viene siendo el principio segn el cual
la obra acaba por ser desinstalada. 18
Andre fue uno de los primeros artistas en investigar la pieza esparcida
(scatter piece), una categora de antiforma escultural. Pero aunque Andre
dium and making (not fabrication per

se, but installation) are acts that intensify specific qualities of experience.
Form is not obviated by the work;
inherited from modernist abstraction,
form serves as device rather than as
image: it facilitates making. 20 Literalism is not a substitute for abstraction;
opposing the two establishes a false
choice. Spread across the floor, the
work inserts itself between the observer and the world: this is something that
we not only witness, but (in treading
on and across the work, thereby motivating a sensation of its material nature and its gravity-bound cohesion)
that we touch.21
recurri a esta tcnica slo unas cuantas

veces, no representa una anomala en
su obra: en cierto modo es intrnseca a
sus cuadrculas y filas, los cuales se han
acomodado en su lugar slo temporalmente. La cuadrcula, que es parte de
la historia de la abstraccin modernista,
ocup un lugar privilegiado en el arte a
partir de 1960, cuando lleg a constituir
la matriz predominante de la forma no
composicional. Pero las cuadrculas de
Andre, adems de ser dibujadas, son
ensambladas (incluso si el ensamblaje
de la obra segn una configuracin cuadriculada puede describirse como una
especie de operacin de dibujo). Sera
disparatado negar que la cuadrcula
llamar su cualidad de abierta, su movilidad con respecto a la des-orientacin

del obser vador y a la promesa de desintegracin, que constituye el medio mismo por el cual la obra, con posterioridad
a 1966, cobra unidad. 19
Podramos decir tambin que la obra
de Andre carece de estilo por razones
estratgicas? Una gran parte del llamado arte minimalista se deriva de la
abstraccin modernista, y sin embargo
parece que busca, por medio del encuentro fenomenolgico, evadirse del estilo
histrico. Ninguna obra escapa su propia historicidad, pero tal vez podramos
decir que la obra de Andre intenta hacer
precisamente eso (con xito o sin l). Debemos tomar en cuenta varios factores
que diferencian la obra de Andre de la
de sus contemporneos. La formacin
es uno de ellos: el proceso transparente
de la obra que, aparte de la produccin
industrial, no requiere nada parecido a
una tcnica o habilidad artesanal. Podemos pensar que sta es una operacin des-habilitativa, pero corresponde
sobre todo al materialismo de la obra,

if assembling the work according to a

grid configuration could be described
as a kind of drawing operation). It
would be perverse to deny that the
grid is a priori: the non-hierarchical
arrangement of parts is crucial to the
affect of Andres work, to its quality
of being self-evident; and the work
is conceived in this form before it
is assembled. Yet the physical and
material terms of Andres workthe
heavy weight of the medium, and
the unattached parts and simplicity
of means a re qualities of making
more than of conventional form. In
this way, the principle of the closed
field, which is virtually figured by the
grid, mediates between vestiges of
late modernist form (in Andres poems
and early objects) and the material
coordinates of the sculptural work beginning in 1966. At the same time,
the cloudgiven its historical significance as an aesthetic devicefigures
what we might describe as the works
openness, its mobility with respect
to the dis-orientation of the observer
and to the promise of dis-integration,
which is the very means through
which the work, beginning in 1966,
comes together. 19
Can we also say that Andres work
is strategically styleless? Much socalled Minimal art is partly derived
from modernist abstraction, yet appears, through the agency of phenomenological encounter, to seek
escape from historical style. No work
evades its own historicity, but it might
be possible to claim that Andres work
means to (whether or not it gets close
to achieving such a thing). It is useful
to consider several factors that set
Andres work apart from that of his
contemporaries. Formation is one
of them: the transparent process of
the work which a part from the industrial production of Andres mediumrequires nothing like technique
or conventional craft. We may want
to think of this as a de-skilling operation, but it corresponds, above all, to
the works materialism: its close proximity, again, to something like material irreducibility, being the degree
to which medium is not just exposed
but primary s omething processed
(pre-formed as plates, for example)
but close to raw. Close to raw is a
qualified claim, but an argument for
the primacy of process and materiality in Andres work is not an argument
for base-line literalism (this would, in
any case, be contradicted by, among
other things, claims on behalf of the
significance of photography to the
work). It is instead an argument for an
aesthetic operation through which me-
su marcada proximidad, nuevamente, a

algo as como la irreductibilidad de la
materia, o sea, hasta qu grado el medio
resulta no slo expuesto sino tambin
primario, algo procesado (preformado
como las placas, por ejemplo) pero casi
materia prima. Esto es un decir, pero si
alegamos que el proceso y la materialidad son primarios en la obra de Andre,
no estamos alegando a favor del un literalismo de base (lo cual sera contradecir
la importancia de la fotografa para esta
obra). Ms bien alegamos la validez de
una operacin esttica mediante la cual
el medio y la hechura (no la fabricacin
per se, sino la instalacin) son actos que
intensifican cualidades especficas de la
experiencia. La forma no es eliminada o
anulada por la obra; la forma, heredada
de la abstraccin modernista, funciona
ms como un mecanismo que como una
The grid and the row are configurations that apply less to form as image
than to the process of making, which,
in turn, subtends Andres characterization of the sculpture a bove all
the configurations of metal platesas
place.22 With the lake and the road,
the two images through which (from
early on) Andre figured his works
radical spatial extension, and with
multiple allusions both to landscape
and to primordial building practice,
Andre means to implicate the space
of the world. Do his terms bracket
the industrial origin of his medium?
When Andre is explicit about the
relevance of industry, it is to the railroad that he refers, with respect to the
additive configuration of parts in his
work and its dense materiality. His
existe a priori: la disposicin no jerrquica de las partes es esencial para producir una impresin, para que la obra se
vea como lo que en realidad es; y la obra
es concebida en esta forma antes de ser
ensamblada. Mas los trminos fsicos y
materiales de la obra de Andre el gran
peso del medio y las partes sin unir y la
sencillez de la realizacin son cualidades de la hechura ms que de la forma
convencional. As, el principio del campo
cerrado, delimitado virtualmente por la
cuadrcula, tiende un puente entre los
vestigios de la forma modernista tarda
(en los poemas y los primeros objetos
de Andre) y las coordenadas materiales de la su obra escultural, a partir de
1966. Al mismo tiempo, la nube dada
su relevancia como mecanismo esttico
delimita la obra en lo que podramos
15
imagen, porque facilita la hechura. 20 El

literalismo no es un sustituto de la abstraccin: el oponer los dos ofrece una
opcin falsa. Extendida en el piso, la
obra sir ve de intermediario entre el observador y el mundo: esto es algo que no
solamente presenciamos, sino que (al pisar la obra y caminar sobre ella, creando
una sensacin de su naturaleza material
y su cohesin determinada por la gravedad) tocamos al mismo tiempo. 21
La cuadrcula y la fila son configuraciones que se plican menos a la forma como
imagen que al proceso de la hechura,
el cual, a su vez, subyace la caracterizacin de Andre de la escultura por
encima de todas las configuraciones
de placas de metal como lugar. 22
Partiendo del lago y el camino--las dos
figuras que, desde un principio, Andre
experience as a brakeman was, he

tells us, formative,23 something that is
now commonly invoked in accounts
of the emergence of Andres work.
But the kind of work he performed at
the yard during the early 60s hadnt
really changed since the origins of
the railroad; in other words, Andres
industrialism is elementary. Likewise,
the railroad also implicates a flat,
lateral space in nature; specifically,
thinking of the railroad cut, a channel cleaving a landscape that, in its
topology, is otherwise inhospitable to
laying track, the railroad also signifies incursion. These elements are familiar to a nineteenth-century American opposition of industrialization to
the bucolic or Arcadian land. 24 Yet it
would be difficult to claim that industry as suchpro or conis thematically privileged by Andre (even if we
may wish to take it up as a topic of interpretation25). Indeed, his mediums,
and the terms according to which he
first chose to account for his works
place in the physical world, are studiously unrelated to industrial manufacture and consumer culture, which
we partly associate with the work
of his Minimalist contemporaries,
Dan Flavin and Donald Judd (Flavins fluorescent lamps, for example,
and Judds aluminum and Plexiglas).
The elements of Andres work had to
come from somewhere, and, in the
case of the metal plates, industry is
the source; the plates are manufactured objects. Yet, when they were
first taken up by the artist, Andres
early materials, speaking of bricks,
plates, and timbers (many originally
scavenged) were largely unassimilated: unassembled, unpolished, and
untreated in any significant way. Their
constitution is rudimentary, and their
identity possesses elements of both
nature and culture (something heightened when the outdoor works are left
to weather and age). This is how they
lend themselves to actionsspeaking
of their role in Andres workthat are
almost but not quite constructional.
Otherwise, despite the constructive
logic of the grid, the work, composed
of unattached or unadhered parts that
lie low or (in the case of the timbers)
sometimes stack, is never far from being undone, which guarantees a close
proximity to disorder.
Andres work lives at an intersection
of materialism and space that is culturally elemental: it represents neither
a social production of space (citing terms from Henri Lefebvre 26) nor
a strict phenomenology of encounter
per se, but a summoned space established by an intensification of the
constitution of a medium that is manufactured, but only minimally so o r

(again, with respect to the timber
works) of construction that is minimally formed. Reference to a passage in
Virgils Aeneid helps make this point.
It is the description of the advance of
a warship through a body of water
that lies in a wood: Over the waters
glides the well-pitched pine [] They
with their rowing give night and day
no rest, pass the long bends, are
shaded with diverse trees, and cleave
the green woods on their calm surface. To borrow from Andres terms,
the vessel can be said to perform a
cut: in moving through the water it appears to part the surrounding wood,
which is reflected on the waters otherwise flat surface. In Virgils original,
the final phrase reads, viridisque secant placido aequore silvas. 27 The
term secant is literally operative: it
cuts between the two imagesthose
of the trees and the waters surface.
Secant is a word Andre selected for
the title of a work of 1977, which
took the form of a 300-foot line of
square-cut fir timbers laid across the
hilly terrain of a park in Roslyn, New
York.28 The titles relation to Virgil is
coincidental, but useful. Virgil characterizes the ships passagethe effect
of the ship, an exposed construction
of wooden planks, moving through
the landscape a s being at once
material and perceptual. The space
of the world serves as a compound
medium. Minimal action through or
against it is a function of seeing and
substance. That is, as conjured by
the poet, the image of the landscape
contains a second image, that of the
reflected trees; in that the second image occurs on or within the waters
surface w hich, as substance and
reflection, is cutit is, in the readers
imagination, both seen and felt. The
device (the ship) is a constructiona
fabricated object; yet, even as its motion through space produces complex
perceptual consequences, it activates
a relation of substance to substance
that is elemental.
Citing Virgil is not intended to ascribe
archaism to Andres work, although
some of his other titles, such as Pyre
and Herm, demonstrate an archaic
impulse (which, as I have tried to
show, had its uses with regard to
the rudimentary materials and basic
building principles employed to make
the work). 29 The passage from the
Aenied both describes and, through
sentence structure, accomplishes, an
operation. Returning to Andres first
full floor-bound installation, we might
want to consider whether or not the
realiz la radical extensin de su obra

y las mltiples alusiones tanto al paisaje
como a las prcticas de construccin,
Andre intenta poner en juego el espacio
del mundo. Sus trminos hacen resaltar
el origen industrial de su medio?
Cuando Andre habla explcitamente
acerca de la importancia de la industria,
se refiere preferentemente al ferrocarril,
respecto a la configuracin aditiva de las
partes en su obra y su densa materialidad. Nos dice que su experiencia como
guardagujas fue formativa, 23 y este hecho lo citan con frecuencia quienes hablan sobre el desarrollo de su obra. Pero
el trabajo que desempe en el ferrocarril a principios de los sesentas no haba
cambiado en realidad desde los orgenes del ferrocarril, o sea que el industrialismo de Andre es elemental. Asimismo,
el ferrocarril implica un espacio plano y
lateral dentro de la naturaleza, especficamente, en trminos del corte, un
canal que escinde y abre camino por un
terreno inhspito para la construccin de
las vas. Estos elementos recuerdan la
oposicin en Estados Unidos, durante el
siglo diecinueve, a la industrializacin
a expensas del bucolismo o la tierra de
la Arcadia. 24 Sin embargo, no es lcito
suponer que la industria en s es privilegiada temticamente, en pro o en contra, por Andre (aunque tal vez constituye un tema vlido de interpretacin 25).
Ciertamente, los medios empleados por
Andre, y los trminos a los que recurre
para describir el lugar de su obra dentro
del mundo fsico, no guardan relacin
alguna con la manufactura industrial y
la cultura del consumismo, que asociamos en parte con sus contemporneos
minimalistas, Dan Flavin y Donald
Judd (los focos fluorescentes de Flavin,
por ejemplo, y el aluminio y el plexigls
de Judd). Los elementos de la obra de
Andre tena que provenir de alguna parte, y, en el caso de las placas de metal,
la fuente es la industria; las placas son
objetos manufacturados. No obstante,
los primeros objetos manejados por Andre ladrillos, placas y madera (muchos
de ellos encontrados o recogidos) eran
en su mayora materia prima, sin pulir,
sin tratar, sin ensamblar. Su constitucin
es rudimentaria, y su identidad presenta
elementos tanto de la naturaleza como
de la cultura (lo que se subraya cuando las obras se colocan en exteriores y
quedan expuestos por mucho tiempo a
la intemperie). De esta manera es como
se prestan a acciones que, refirindose
al papel que juegan en la obra de Andre
son casi, pero no totalmente, construccionales. De otra manera, a pesar de la
lgica constructiva de la cuadrcula, la
obra, compuesta de partes no adheridas
unas a otras, partes que se extienden
por el piso o (en el caso de los maderos)
16
se apilan, nunca est a salvo de ser deshecha, y esto asegura su proximidad al

desorden.
La obra de Andre vive en un cruce del
materialismo y un espacio culturalmente
elemental: no representa ni una produccin de espacio social (citando los
trminos de Henri Lefebvre 26 ) ni una
fenomenologa estricta del encuentro
per se, sino un espacio convocado, establecido por una intensificacin de la
constitucin de un medio que est manufactura, pero slo mnimamente, o
(de nuevo, con respecto a las obras de
madera) de una construccin que est
formada mnimamente. Una referencia
a un pasaje de la Eneida de Virgilio ayudar a esclarecer este punto. Se trata de
la descripcin del avance de un barco
de guerra por unas aguas rodeadas por
una selva: por los vados se desliza la
untosa madera [] Ellos fatigan el da y
la noche con sus remos y superan largos
meandros cubiertos de variados rboles,
y por la plcida llanura cortan las verdes
selvas. Recurriendo a un trmino manejado por Andre, podramos decir que el
barco hace un corte: al avanzar, da la
impresin de estar partiendo los rboles
circundantes, reflejados en la superficie
del agua. El texto latino de Virgilio es:
viridisque secant placido aequore silvas. 27 El trmino secant es literalmente
operativo: hace un corte entre las dos
imgenes, la de los rboles y la de la
superficie del agua. Secante es una palabra que Andre escoge como ttulo de una
obra suya de 1977, consistente en una
fila de 300 pies de largo, de maderos de
abeto cortados, que se extendan por el
terreno desigual de un parque en Roslyn,
New York. 28 La relacin entre el ttulo y
los versos citados de Virgilio es fortuita,
pero informativa. Virgilio caracteriza
el movimiento del barco el efecto que
produce la nave, una construccin de
maderos expuestos, mientras avanza
por el paisaje como un fenmeno material y al mismo tiempo perceptual. El
espacio del mundo sirve como un medio
compuesto. Una accin mnima observada a su travs o yuxtapuesta a l es
una funcin de la vista y la sustancia. Es
decir, la imagen del paisaje, tal como la
proyecta el poeta, contiene una segunda imagen, la de los rboles reflejados.
Esta segunda imagen, que ocurre en la
superficie del agua a la cual, como sustancia y como reflejo, se la practica un
corte es percibida por el lector, en su
imaginacin, como algo visto y tambin
sentido. El mecanismo (la nave) es una
construccin, un objeto fabricado, pero
a la vez que su desplazamiento por el
espacio trae consecuencias perceptuales
complejas, activa tambin una relacin
entre sustancia y sustancia que es elemental.
word equivalent, in this regard, is

strategic. 30 We recall that Stielglitz
did not use it to describe a system of
permuting form (one cloud equivalent to b ut not the same as a nother), but to identify the cloud as
an analogue for states of psyche. But
equivalent does not just connote an
analogical relationshipan equivalence between, say, clouds and psychic states or among objects within a
series. Equivalent means analogue;
it is a kind of metaphor or trope. As
such, it identifies the sculpture itself
as a device of this kind. And in that
regard it virtually connotes a chief
motivating device for Andres entire
project as I am trying to describe it,
representing as it does a class of entitiesof words and thingsengaged
in reciprocity or exchange.
No citamos a Virgilio para atribuir a la
3 David Bourdon, A Redefinition of Sculp-
Este ensayo es una versin expandida de una re-
obra de Andre cierto arcasmo, aunque
ture, in Carl Andre: Sculpture 19591977
sea de una exhibicin que apareci por primera
algunos de sus otros ttulos, como Pyre
(New York: Jaap Reitman, 1978): 2829;
vez en Artforum en febrero de 2011, 216-17. Mi
y Herm, sugieren un impulso hacia lo
verified by the artist in James Meyer, Mini-
agradecimiento a Artforum y a Don MacMahon,
arcaico (que, como he intentado demos-
malism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties (Lon-
el editor del manuscrito original.
trar, tena sus usos con respecto a los
don and New Haven: Yale University Press,
materiales rudimentarios y principios
2001): 189.
Jeffrey Weiss es Curador de la Coleccin Panza
bsicos de construccin empleados
4 See Sarah Greenough,The Key Set,
del Museo Solomon R. Guggenheim, Nueva York.
para crear la obra.) 29 El pasaje citado
in Greenough, Alfred Stieglitz: The Key
de la Eneida tanto describe como reali-
Set. The Alfred Stielgitz Collection of Photo-
n o tas
za (mediante la sintaxis) una operacin.
graphs, vol. I (Washington: National Gallery
Regresando a la primera instalacin de
of Art, and New York: Harry Abrams, 2002):
vez en un ensayo de David Bourdon, quien
Andre realizada enteramente como
XLIII. Rosalind Krauss observes an extraor-
cita o perifrasea las propias palabras del
obra de piso, tal vez nos podemos pre-
dinary sense of disorientation in Stieglitzs
artista. Vase David Bourdon, The Razed
guntar si la palabra equivalente, en
cropped images of clouds, with reference
Sites of Carl Andre: A Sculptor Laid Low by
este sentido, es o no es estratgica. 30
to the absence of landscape; this, in turn,
the Brancusi Syndrome, Artforum (octubre
Recordemos que Stieglitz no la utiliz
amplifies the degree to which they consti-
de 1966); reimpreso en Paula Feldman, Alis-
Estas referencias aparecen por primera
tair Rider, y Karsten Schubert eds., About Carl

Andre: Critical Texts Since 1965 (London: Ridinghouse, 2006): 24-28. En este ensayo se
dice que una excursin en canoa en un lago
en Nueva Hampshire en 1965 le sugiri la
idea a Andre de que la escultura deba ser
tion review that first appeared in Artforum in
tan plana y a nivel como el agua. Tambin
February 2011, 216 17. My thanks to Artforum
se incluye una cita de Andre: mi pieza ideal
and to Don MacMahon, the editor of the origi-
de escultura es un camino. Bourdon obser-
nal manuscript.
va: l piensa en caminos que se caminan o se

Alfred Stie g litz , E q u iva l e nt , 19 31. T h e Alfr e d Stie g l itz C o lle ct io n,
This essay is an expanded version of an exhibi-
Jeffrey Weiss is the Panza Collection curator

at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York, and Adjunct Professor at the Institute of
Fine Arts, New York.
NO T ES
1 These references first appear in an essay by David Bourdon, who quotes or paraphrases the artists own words. See David
Bourdon, The Razed Sites of Carl Andre:
A Sculptor Laid Low by the Brancusi Syndrome, Artforum (October 1966); reprinted
in Paula Feldman, Alistair Rider, and Karsten
Schubert eds., About Carl Andre: Critical
Texts Since 1965 (London: Ridinghouse,
2006): 2428. In that essay a canoeing
excursion on a lake in New Hampshire in
miran paseando, y no como la distancia ms

corta entre dos puntos rpidamente atravesados por un automvil (Andre no maneja).
2
Respecto a la escultura como lugar,
vase Phyllis Tuchman, An Inter view with

Carl Andre, Artforum (junio de 1970): 55:
Uso el lugar en un tipo de aforismo que parece que me funciona, para cambiar de forma
en escultura a estructura en escultura, a lo
que acab por denominar lugar en escultura. Yo entiendo estas y otras figuras a travs
de las cuales Andre caracteriza la disposicin fsica de su obra como mecanismos o
construcciones, sin importar, por ejemplo, si
la experiencia del lago de Nueva Hampshire
fue genuinamente reveladora (versus funcionar como una confirmacin, o hasta como un
recuerdo que se recaptur para ser vir como
1965 is said to have induced the idea of
una clase de explicacin cmoda).
sculpture that is as level as water. Andre
is also quoted as saying, my ideal piece
ture, en Carl Andre: Sculpture 1959-1977
David Bourdon, A Redefinition of Sculp-
of sculpture is a road. Bourdon observes:
para describir un sistema de forma
tute stark examples of the photographic cut,
Nueva York: Jaap Reitman, 1978): 28-29;
He thinks of roads that are leisurely walked
permutante (una nube equivalente a,
whereby the cloud is an image punched []
verificado por el artista en James Meyer,
upon or looked at, not as the shortest dis-
pero no lo mismo que, otra), sino para
out of the continuous fabric of the sky. See
Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties
tance between two points quickly traversed
sealar la analoga entre una nube y
Krauss, Stieglitz/Equivalents, October
(Londres y New Haven: Yale University Press,
by automobile (he does not drive).
un estado squico. Pero equivalente
(Winter 1979): 13435, 140.
2001): 189.
2 Regarding sculpture as place, see
no se limita a sugerir una relacin ana-
5 In that sculpture could not impose a
Phyllis Tuchman, An Interview with Carl An-
lgica, una equivalencia entre, diga-
single, preferred vantage on the beholder
in Greenough, Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set.
Vase Sarah Greenough,The Key Set,
dre, Artforum (June 1970): 55: I use place
mos, nubes y estados squicos o entre
(who is free to walk around it), Baudelaire
The Alfred Stielgitz Collection of Photogra-
in a kind of aphorism that seems to work for
objetos dentro de un serie. Equivalen-
opposed sculpture to painting, and sculpture
phs, vol. i (Washington: National Galler y of
me about shifting from form in sculpture to
te significa anlogo; de hecho es una
as boring or tiresome (ennuyeuse) in his noto-
Art, y New York: Harr y Abrams, 2002): XLiii.
structure in sculpture to what I wound up with
especie de metfora o tropo. Como tal,
rious review of the Paris Salon of 1849, a key
Rosalind Krauss obser va un extraordinario
as place in sculpture. I take these and other
identifica la escultura misma como un
text in the modern critical characterization
sentido de desorientacin en las imgenes
figures through which Andre characterizes
mecanismo de este tipo. Y desde este
of the sculptural object. See Charles Baude-
cortadas de las nubes de Stieglitz, con refe-
the physical disposition of his work to be de-
punto de vista, connota virtualmente
laire, Pourquoi la sculpture est ennuyeuse,
rencia a la ausencia del paisaje; esto, a su
vices or constructions, regardless of whether
uno de los principales mecanismos del
reprinted in Baudelaire, Curiosits Esth-
vez, amplifica la medida en que constituyen
or not, for example, the experience of the
proyecto entero de Andre segn estoy
tiques (Paris: Louis Conard, 1923) 18788.
ejemplos del corte fotogrfico, mediante el
New Hampshire lake was genuinely revela-
tratando de describirlo, ya que repre-
6 This aspect of the work has been dis-
cual la nube es una imagen perforada y
tory (versus functioning as a confirmation, or
senta una clase de entidades palabras
cussed in Jeffrey Inaba, Carl Andres Same
sacada de la tela continua del cielo. Vase
even as a memory that was retrieved to serve
y cosas entregadas a la reciprocidad
Old Stuff, Assemblage 39 (1999): 46,
Krauss, Stieglitz/Equivalents, October (in-
as a kind of convenient explanation).
o al intercambio.
where the relation of Andres work to the
vierno de 1979): 134-35, 140.
17

full space of the floor is given extended con-
Ya que la escultura no puede imponer
ate natural phenomena s uch as clouds
13 Para Andre sobre King Philips War,
sideration. Inaba notes that the first plan for
una nica perspectiva sobre el obser vador
and stonesis an ancient category of esthet-
ver Andre y Frampton, 12 Dialogues, 76-79.
Equivalents had the group arranged within
(quien queda libre para rodearla), Baudelaire
ic form in Asia and the West. For an impor-
14 Kenner, Art in a Closed Field, 613.
a rectilinear perimeter; the final scheme,
opona la escultura a la pintura, viendo aqu-
tant study of the cloud as an anti-perspectival
15 Vase Daniell Cornell, Alfred Stieglitz
with its irregular boundary and evenly di-
lla como aburrida (ennuyeuse) en su famosa
image in this regard, see Hubert Damisch,
and the Equivalent (exh. cat. Yale University
mensioned open areas, blurred the limits
resea del Saln de Pars de 1849, un texto
A Theory of /Cloud/: Toward a History of
Art Gallery, 1999): 4-14.
between the series and its surroundings,
clave para la caracterizacin moderna del
Painting (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
16 Este es un tema muy amplio. Para una
making Equivalents the first work by Andre in
objeto escultural. Vase Charles Baudelaire,
2002). The book was originally published
vista panormica, consulte H.W. Janson,
which the sculptural elements and the space
Pourquoi la sculpture est ennuyeuse, reim-
(in French) in 1972.
Chance Images, en Philip P. Wiener ed.,
around them on all sides was integral to the
preso en Baudelaire, Curiosits Esthtiques
17 Mel Bochner, Serial Art Systems: So-
Dictionary of the History of Ideas, vol. I (Nue-
works form.
(Paris: Louis Conard, 1923) 187-88.
lipsism, Arts Magazine (Summer 1967);
va York: Scribners, 1973): 340-53. La ima-
7 Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton, 12
Este aspecto de la obra ha sido discuti-
reprinted in Bochner, Solar Systems and Rest
gen fortuita, motivada tradicionalmente por
Dialogues 1962 1963 (Nova Scotia: The
da en Jeffrey Inaba, Carl Andres Same Old
Rooms: Writings and Interviews, 1965
los fenmenos naturales apenas incipientes
Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and
Stuff, Assemblage 39 (1999): 46, donde la
2007, 40.
como nubes y piedras es una categora an-
Design, 1980): 65. Frampton probably used
relacin de la obra de Andre al espacio ente-
18 Such a principle is related to what Inaba
ciana de la forma esttica en Asia y Occidente.
the cut to describe the cropping operation
ro del piso se analiza en detalle. Inaba hace
refers to as the substitution of parts, ac-
Un estudio importante de la nube como ima-
intrinsic to photographic vision to the
ver que en el primer plan para Equivalents
cording to which parts are presumed to
gen antiperspectival es el de Hubert Damisch,
camera as frame (although it might also be
apareca el grupo dispuesto dentro de un pe-
be replaceable and nonhierarchical and
A Theor y of /Cloud/: Toward a Histor y of
imagined, in sculptural terms, as a projec-
rmetro rectangular: el esquema final, con su
therefore assembled and disassembled with
Painting (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
tion into or through deep space). Krauss has
contorno irregular y reas de espacio abierto
ease. See Inaba, Carl Andres Same Old
2002). El libro fue publicado originalmente en
observed that, in this regard, the Stieglitz
del mismo tamao, atena la distincin entre
Stuff, 4849.
francs en 1972.
Equivalents photographs are stark examples
la serie y el espacio circundante, con lo que
19 I am drawing my application of the
17 Mel Bochner, Serial Art Systems: Solip-
of the photographic cut. See Krauss, Stieg-
Equivalents se convirti en la primera obra de
form of the cloud from Damisch (who is, in
sism,ArtsMagazine(Summer1967);reimpre-
litz/Equivalents, 134.
Andre en que los elementos esculturales y el
turn, extrapolating from Jacob Burckhardts
so en Bochner, Solar Systems and Rest Rooms:
8 In this way the work converts a limita-
espacio alrededor de ellos por todos los lados
Der Cicerone), for whom it functions i n
Writings and Interviews, 1965-2007, 40.
tion of conventional sculpture (according to
era un aspecto integral de la forma de la obra.
ceiling decoration by Correggio, among
18 Tal principio se relaciona con lo que In-
Baudelaire) into a capacity for openness.
Carl Andre y Hollis Frampton, 12 Dialo-
other placesas image, theme, and spatial
aba denomina sustitucin de partes, segn
9 Andres work may be said to implicate
gues 1962-1963 (Nova Scotia: The Press of
and material device. As such it contradicts
lo cual se presume que las partes son rempla-
a figure-ground relationship in its percep-
the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design,
the very idea of outline and delineation and
zables y no jerrquicas y por lo tanto mon-
tual opposition of form and field (the pla-
1980): 65. Frampton probablemente us el
through its relative insubstantiality constitutes
tadas y desmontadas con facilidad. Vase
narity or linearity of the grid or row against
corte para describir la operacin intrnseca a
a negation of the solidity, permanence, and
Inaba, Carl Andres Same Old Stuff, 48-49.
the floor as ground). Yet, in that it spreads
la visin fotogrfica a la cmara como mar-
identity that define shape, in the classic sense
19 Dependo, para mi aplicacin de la forma
across real space and invitesbut does not
co (aunque podramos imaginar, en trminos
of the term []. (Damisch, A Theory of /
de la nube, de Damisch (quien, a su vez, en-
controlmobility of vantage, it tempers our
esculturales, como una proyeccin dentro
Cloud/, 15.) My point is that Andres choice
cuentra su modelo en Der Cicerone, de Jacob
impression of sculpture as image.
o a travs del espacio profundo). Krauss ha
of the Stieglitz cloud as a referent for his first,
Burckhardt), para quien funciona en deco-
10 For a recent treatment of the relevance of
obser vado que, en este respecto, las fotogra-
room-filling installation of floor-bound work
raciones de techo de Correggio, entre otros
the poems to Andres other work, see James
fas de Stieglitz de Equivalents son ejemplos
is striking. With respect to Stieglitzs Equiva-
lugares como imagen, tema y mecanismo
Meyer, Carl Andre, Writer, in Meyer ed.,
impresionantes del corte fotogrfico. Vase
lents, Krauss notes a sense not merely of
espacial y material. Como tal, contradice la
Cuts: Carl Andre Texts, 19592004 (Cam-
Krauss, Stieglitz/Equivalents, 134.
found or fortuitous composition, the luck of
idea de perfil y delineacin, y por su calidad
bridge Mass. and London: MIT Press, 2005):
En esta forma la obra convierte una limi-
some accidental arrangement, but of the
de relativa insustancialidad, constituye una
125.
tacin de escultura convencional (de acuerdo
objects resistance to internal arrangement,
negacin de la solidez, la permanencia y la
11 Hugh Kenner, Art in a Closed Field,
con Baudelaire) en capacidad para la apertu-
a positing of the irrelevance of composi-
identidad que definen la forma, en el senti-
Virginia Quarterly Review (Autumn 1962):
ra.
tion. (Krauss, Stiegltiz/Equivalents, 134.)
do clsico de la palabra []. (Damisch, A
597613. For Andres citation of Kenner, see
Puede decirse que la obra de Andre im-
Given that the cloud as image/form occupies
Theory of /Cloud/, 15.) Insisto, pues, en que
his letter to Reno Odlin in Meyer ed., Cuts,
plica una relacin de figura sobre el piso en su
a specific position in the history of pictorial
la decisin de Andre de optar por la nube de
203.
oposicin de percepcin de forma y campo (la
representation, its prominent appearance at
Stieglitz como referente para su primera ins-
12 For a full discussion of Constructivism
condicin de plana o lineal de la cuadrcula o
this moment of extreme rupture from key con-
talacin de piso que llena toda una sala es
as a model for Andre (and Frank Stella), see
la fila contra el piso como suelo). Sin embar-
ventions of the medium of sculpture identifies
realmente notable. Con respecto a los Equiva-
Maria Gough, Frank Stella is a Constructiv-
go, ya que se extiende a travs del espacio
certain new elements s uch as preformed
lents de Stieglitz, Krauss percibe un sentido
ist, October (Winter 2007): 94120.
real e invita pero no controla la perspectiva
particles and the structure of the gridas
no slo de composicin encontrada o fortuita,
13 For Andre on King Philips War, see
mvil, templa nuestra impresin de la escultu-
meaningfully ambivalent: they hold the ca-
resultado azaroso de un arreglo accidental,
Andre and Frampton, 12 Dialogues, 7679.
ra como imagen.
pacity for both coalescence and dissolution.
sino de la resistencia del objeto a un arreglo
14 Kenner, Art in a Closed Field, 613.
10 Para un tratado reciente de la relevan-
This double capacity can be signified by the
interno, una postulacin de la irrelevancia de
15 See Daniell Cornell, Alfred Stieglitz
cia de los poemas con otras obras de Andre,
term formation, which recalls Damischs
la composicin. (Krauss, Steigltiz/Equiva-
and the Equivalent (exh. cat. Yale University
vase James Meyer, Carl Andre, Writer,
characterization of the cloud as a figure of
lents, 134.) Ya que la nube como imagen/
Art Gallery, 1999): 414. Nonetheless, as
in Meyer ed., Cuts: Carl Andre Texts, 1959-
movement, an image in the process of de-
forma ocupa una posicin especfica dentro
Greeno ugh tells us, Stieglitz did treat the
2004 (Cambridge Mass.y Londres: MIT Press,
formation (18 19) or, conversely, of matter
de la historia de la representacin pictrica,
cloud studies as a permutable exercise in
2005): 1-25.
aspiring to form (35).
su aparicin en este momento de ruptura
that he exhibited them in various sequences
11 Hugh Kenner, Art in a Closed Field,
20 Forming describes what Andre later said
extrema con las tradiciones clave del medio
and groups, reshuffling combinations and
Virginia Quarterly Review (otoo de 1962):
he drew from Frank Stellas work of 195960
de la escultura identifica ciertos elementos
changing the order in which they were ar-
597-613. Para la cita que hace Andre de Ken-
(the impact of which, at the time, was slow
nuevos como partculas preformadas y
ranged. Greenough, The Key Set, XLIII.
ner, ver su carta a Reno Odlin en Meyer ed.,
and inexorable): it was not basically the
la estructura de la cuadrcula como signifi-
16 This is a vast topic. For an overview, see
Cuts, 203.
appearance of Stellas paintings that influ-
cativamente ambivalentes, con la capacidad
H.W. Janson, Chance Images, in Philip
12 Para una discusin completa sobre Cons-
enced my sculpture but his practice. []
de combinar y disolver. Esta doble capacidad
P. Wiener ed., Dictionary of the History of
tructivismo como modelo de Andre (y Frank
[Stella] neutraliz[ed] gesture by using uni-
puede expresarse mediante el trmino for-
Ideas, vol. I (New York: Scribners, 1973):
Stella), ver Maria Gough, Frank Stella Is a
form brush strokes that trace a metrical pat-
macin, el cual recuerda la caracterizacin
34053. The chance image, conventionally
Constructivist, October (invierno de 2007):
tern over the whole canvas. By increments of
de Damish de la nube como una figura del
motivated by the contemplation of incho-
94-120.
identical gestures the ground of the canvas
movimiento, una imagen en proceso de
18

was transformed into the field of painting.
deformacin (18-19) o, a la inversa, de la
Art Workers Coalition in 1969 as well as his
por Leo Marx; vase Marx, The Machine in the
Emphasis is placed on the works process,
materia que aspira a ser forma (35).
personal cultivation of a workers identity.
Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in
not its image (nor even its structure per se).
20 Formar describe lo que Andre dijo ms
There is no question that, as Bryan-Wilson
America (publicado en 1964), que es tal vez
See Andre, Reflections on BLAM! (1984), in
adelante que haba derivado de la obra de
has now mapped, these factors are relevant
pertinente histricamente al dualismo de in-
Meyer ed., Cuts, 271.
Frank Stella de 1959-60 (el impacto de la cual,
to the character of the work, perhaps even its
dustria y paisaje en la obra de Andre.
21 Alex Potts makes a distinction between
a la sazn, le pareca lenta e inexorable):
formation; the question for me is only the de-
25 Vase Julia Brown Wilson, Art Wor-
true bare-handed touch and the experience
no era esencialmente la apariencia de las
gree to which this should take priority in our
kers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War
of standing or walking across a work by An-
pinturas de Stella lo que influa en mi escul-
grasp of the works conceptual and material
Era (Berkeley: University of California Press,
dre, one which I am obviously bracketing
tura, sino su prctica, [] [Stella] neutraliz
logic. The industrial identity of Andres mate-
2011). La identidad industrial de los mate-
here. See Potts, Paradoxes of the Sculp-
el gesto usando pinceladas uniformes que
rials is also addressed in Potts, Paradoxes
riales de Andre tambin la comenta Potts
tural, in Ian Cole ed., Carl Andre and the
producen un patrn mtrico en todo el lienzo.
of the Sculptural, 6465. Potts acknowl-
en su Paradoxes of the Sculptural, 64-65.
Sculptural Imagination, vol. 2 of Museum of
Mediante incrementos de gestos idnticos,
edges the historicity of the materials, but
Potts reconoce asimismo la historicidad de
Modern Art Papers (Museum of Modern Art,
la superficie del lienzo se transformaba en
observes our changing relation to them over
los materiales, pero seala que nuestra re-
Oxford, 1996): 59.
el campo de la pintura. Se hace hincapi
time. A response to medium in Andres work
lacin con ellos cambia con el tiempo. Una
22 The only other formapart from the grid
en el proceso de la obra, no en su imagen (ni
as hard, gritty, and elemental, he notes, must
respuesta a la obra de Andre segn la cual los
or row and the scatter piecethat Andre
siquiera su estructura per se). Vase Andre,
be replacedin the era of postmodernity
materiales son duros, toscos y elementales,
introduced into his work during the period
Reflections on BLAM! (1984), en Meyer ed.,
by more elusive, improbable and contrary
agrega, debe ser remplazada en la poca
of the gridded arrangement of bricks and
Cuts, 271.
fantasies pertaining, for example, to sen-
de lo postmoderno por fantasas impro-
plates is the coil: long ribbons of zinc or cop-
21 Alex Potts distingue entre el toque con
suous gloss, to bodily associations, or to
bables y contrarias, ms elusivas, relativas,
per that unspools across the floor. Like the
la mano desnuda y la experiencia de pararse
the unheimlich atmosphere of the interior.
por ejemplo, a una patina sensual, a las
grid, with its unattached particles, the coil (in
o caminar por encima de una obra de Andre,
He cautions us not to promote [the work]
asociaciones corporales, o a la atmsfera de
Andres application of it, as a tensile ribbon)
una distincin que estoy subrayando aqu.
as embodying some authentic, solid feeling
unheimlich del interior. Nos advierte que no
is an entity that forms, un-forms, and re-forms
Vase Potts, Paradoxes of the Sculptural,
for things with which we are beginning to
hay que promover [la obra] como si encar-
itself according to the simplest possible op-
en Ian Cole ed., Carl Andre and the Sculptu-
lose touch. I would resist wholly abandon-
nara alguna sensacin autntica y slida de
erations.
ral Imagination, vol. 2 de Museum of Modern
ing that sensation, however, for it is closer to
las cosas con las cuales comenzamos a perder
23 See Andres interview of 1972 with Paul
Art Papers (Museum of Modern Art, Oxford,
true of Andres work than that of many other
el contacto. Yo me resistira del todo a aban-
Cummings for the Archives of American Art:
1996): 59.
artists, and acknowledging this enables us
donar esa sensacin, sin embargo, porque
It was a matter of shunting cars around to
22 La nica otra forma aparte de la cua-
to examine terms that complicate rather than
es ms aplicable a la obra de Andre que a la
sidings of industries and making up trains
drcula o fila y la scatter piece que Andre
replace it.
de otros artistas, y al reconocer esto estamos
and, as trains would come in, breaking them
introdujo en su obra durante el periodo de la
26 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space,
en condiciones de examinar trminos que la
down, classifying them: the operation of
disposicin en cuadrcula de ladrillos y placas
Donald Nicholson-Smith trans., (Malden,
complican en lugar de remplazarla.
making up and breaking down. Drilling, its
es el rollo en espiral: largas cintas de cinc o
MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1991). The book
26 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space,
called. Drilling strings of cars. Its very much
cobre que se desenrollan a lo largo del piso.
was originally published in 1974.
Donald Nicholson-Smith trans., (Malden, MA:
like my work: taking identical units, or close
Al igual que la cuadrcula, con sus partculas
27 Virgil, Aenied, book VIII, line 96. For the
Blackwell Publishing, 1991). El libro se publi-
to identical units, and shifting them around.
no adheridas entre s, el rollo (como lo maneja
Latin original and this English translation,
c originalmente en 1974.
See also Holliss Framptons biography of
Andre) es una entidad que se forma, de-forma
see Virgil, Aenied, trans. H.R. Fairclough
27 Virgilio, La Eneida, Libro VIII, verso 96.
Andre, in a letter of 1969 which was used
y re-forma segn las operaciones ms senci-
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, England:
Traduccin al ingls de H.R. Fairclough (Cam-
as the introduction to Andres exhibition that
llas posibles.
The Loeb Classical Library, 2000): 6667.
bridge, Mass. y Londres: The Loeb Classical
year in The Hague; reprinted in On the Cam-
23 Vase la entrevista de Andre con Paul
28 In modern usage, a secant is a straight
Library, 2000): 66-67.
era Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writ-
Cummings (1972) para Archives of American
line that intersects a curve at two or more
28 En el lenguaje moderno, la secante es
ings of Hollis Frampton (Cambridge, Mass.
Art: Se trataba de cambiar de va a los vago-
points; it is derived from the Latin secare, to
una lnea que corta una cur va en dos o ms
and London: The MIT Press, 2009): 282.
nes, colocarlos en apartaderos de industrias y
cut.
puntos (derivado del latn secare, cortar).
The baldest guesswork, Frampton writes,
juntarlos para formar trenes y, mientras stos
29 Andre has had continuing recourse
29 Andre ha manejado ttulos de este tipo a
would suggest that his earlier intimations
llegaban, clasificarlos, separarlos en trenes
to titles of this kind throughout his career,
lo largo de su carrera, aunque la mayora de
of modular and isometric structures found
ms cortos. Esta operacin de juntar y separar
although most of his titlesarchaic or
sus ttulos, arcaicos o no, son estructurales (y
abundant example among the boxcars and
se llama parchar. Mi obra se parece mucho a
not a re structural (only occasionally his-
slo ocasionalmente histricos o mitolgicos
crossties of New Jersey. We have already
esto: toma unidades idnticas o casi idnticas
torical or mythological per se), and they are
per se), y se atribuyen por la mayor parte a sus
encountered Andres recourse to the railroad
y las acomoda. Vase tambin la biografa
largely ascribed to his work in wood.
obras en madera.
with respect to King Philips War. Like ref-
que Hollis Frampton public de Andre, una
30 This has been done by David Batchelor,
30 Esto ha sido logrado por David Batchelor,
erences to the lake and the road, it is as much
carta fechada 1969 que se utiliz como intro-
who does not, however, account for the prec-
quien no explica, sin embargo, el precedente
a rhetorical expedient as it is a motivating
duccin a la exhibicin de Andre en ese ao
edent of Stieglitz. Our conclusions therefore
de Stieglitz. Nuestras conclusiones, por ende,
factor in the work.
en La Haya; reimpresin en On the Camera
differ. But Batchelor posits an equivalence
difieren. Pero Batchelor postula una equiva-
24 A theme of nineteenth-century American
Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings
among mediums in Andres work: in refer-
lencia entre los medios en la obra de Andre:
literature (and American psyche) that was
of Hollis Frampton (Cambridge, Mass. y Lon-
ring to all the various material employed
al referirse a todos los diferentes materiales
examined during the 1960s by Leo Marx;
dres: The MIT Press, 2009): 282. Podramos
in his work as matter, rather than as, say,
que emplea como materia en lugar de, di-
see Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Tech-
aventurar la hiptesis, escribe Frampton,
bricks or beams, Andre both proposes a
gamos, ladrillos o vigas, Andre propone
nology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
de que sus primeras alusiones a estructuras
way of resisting the tendency to see those
una forma de resistir la tendencia a ver esos
(published in 1964), which is perhaps his-
modulares e isomtricas se ejemplifican am-
materials primarily through their use value,
materiales primordialmente por su valor de
torically relevant to the dualism of industry
pliamente entre los vagones y durmientes de
and suggests the possibility of seeing them in
uso y sugiere, al mismo tiempo, la posibilidad
and landscape in Andres work.
Nueva Jersey. Ya hemos comprobado que
some other more expansive context. Andre
de verlos en otro contexto ms amplio. Andre
25 See Julia Bryan Wilson, Art Workers:
Andre recurre al ferrocarril con respecto a
is proposing that we see all of his work in
est proponiendo que debemos ver toda su
Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era
King Phillips War. Como las referencias al
terms of the equivalence of all matter, irre-
obra en trminos de la equivalencia de toda
(Berkeley: University of California Press,
lago y el camino, se trata tanto de un mecanis-
spective of obvious differences or obvious
materia, sin importar las diferencias obvias o
2011). In her chapter on Andre, the author
mo retrico como de un factor motivante en su
similarities. Batchelor, Equivalence is a
las semejanzas obvias. Batchelor, Equiva-
addresses the artists work as having been
obra.
Strange Word, in Ian Cole ed., Carl Andre
lence Is a Strange Word, en Ian Cole ed., Carl
informed by the conditions of industry,
24 Un tema de la literatura norteamericana
and the Sculptural Imagination, 2021.
Andre and the Sculptural Imagination, 20-21.
something that Andre is claimed to have
del siglo diecinueve (y la psique estadouni-
motivated through his association with the
dense) que fue examinado a partir de 1960
19
Las palabras de Carl Andre
cada ms o menos a la mitad del camino

entre la oficina principal de la Fundacin
Chinati y el edificio de John Wesley, cerca del lado sur de la propiedad. 1 El edifi-
Carl Andres installation of poems,

entitled Words (19581972), is located roughly halfway between the
Chinati Foundations front office and
the John Wesley building near the
southern end of the grounds. 1 The
building, originally a barracks, is
made of concrete and has ten windows on the east side and eleven
windows on the west. Although there
is a north and south entrance, one
almost always enters through Donald
Judds pivoting door at the north end
and exits through the same. [fig. 1]
The installation consists of two rows
of symmetrical, fiberboard floor
cases, sixteen total, arranged alphabetically (A-P) in a counter-clockwise
motion. Since the opening of the
installation in 1995, the space has
held the same 270 pages, a portion
of the 465 pages which constitute
the artists gift to the Chinati Foundation. The installation also includes
two laminated title sheets, which
cio, originalmente un cuartel, est hecho

de concreto y tiene 10 ventanas del lado
este y 11 del oeste. Aunque hay entradas
por el lado norte y sur, casi siempre se
entra por la puerta giratoria de Donald
Judd, al norte, y se sale por la misma.
La instalacin consiste en dos hileras simtricas de cajas sobre el piso hechas
de un tipo de fibras de madera llamado
fibra vulcanizada, las cuales forman un
total de 16 y fueron diseadas por Andre. Desde la apertura de la instalacin
en 1995, el espacio ha mantenido las
mismas 270 pginas, las que constituyen una porcin del total de 465 pginas y que fueron un obsequio del artista
a la fundacin Chinati. La instalacin
tambin incluye dos hojas laminadas
que recogen los ttulos y categorizan
y fechan las obras individuales. Andre
eligi la seleccin inicial y organiz la
disposicin de la presente instalacin,
en la inteligencia de que la Fundacin
Chinati podra agregar o eliminar obras
a su discrecin, siempre y cuando se si21
guieran ciertos protocolos, tales como

estandarizar o igualar los espacios entre
las pginas. Estas pginas tienen una relacin permanente con su ubicacin en
los predios de Chinati, pero al mismo
tiempo estn sujetas a cambios.
Comparados con la enorme maquinaria
industrial requerida para fabricar una
sola obra de Donald Judd de sus 100
Untitled Works in Mill-Aluminum, la
mayora de las obras que constituyen
Words, de Carl Andre, fueron creadas
con la mquina de escribir, una vez considerada revolucionaria, luego ubicua y
ahora anticuada. Ciertas caractersticas
de dicho aparato, las cuales son distintas
de aqullas del procesador de palabras
moderno, permiten que exista una relacin particular con la impresin y con
el espacio en la pgina, y este hecho la
aprovecha Andre en una sorprendente
variedad de maneras. El inters de Andre en la forma, la figura y la relacin
de una parte con la totalidad, subyace
las obras en Words. Con frecuencia se
ha hecho referencia, pero raras veces
se ha explorado el hecho de que esta
breve lectura es un movimiento hacia un
compromiso ms profundo con estas significativas obras en su totalidad.
La mquina de escribir, inventada a raz
Fig. 1: W or ds (19581972) , in stall atio n p ho tog ra ph , 19 95 . C h inat i F o u nd at io n.
categorize and date the individual

works. Andre made the initial selection and organized the layout of the
present installation with the understanding that the Chinati Foundation
could add or subtract works as they
choose, providing that certain installation protocols are followed, such as
standardizing or equalizing the spacing between pages. These pages
have a permanent relationship to
their location on Chinatis grounds,
but are also, simultaneously, subject
to change.
As compared with the large, industrial machinery required to fabricate
a single work of Donald Judds 100
untitled works in mill aluminum, most
of the works that constitute Carl Andres Words were created with the
once revolutionary, then ubiquitous,
and now outdated typewriter. Certain features of the typewriter, which
are distinct from those of the modern
word processor, allow for a particular relationship to printing and to the
space of the page, which Andre has
used to a surprising variety of purposes. Andres interest in form, shape,
and a parts relationship to its whole,
undergirds the works in Words. This
La instalacin de poemas de Carl Andre

titulada Words (19581972), est ubi-
Caitlin Murray typetypetypetypetypetypetype: Carl Andres W OR D S
for a diverse array of shapes. In this

regard, shape is Andres formal starting point. It is often with shape in
mind that Andre then engages the
unit of the word.
The first work we encounter in Chinatis installation, one hundred sonnets,
I flower (1963), disrupts traditional visual forms and uses the single
word as a foundational, and in this
instance solitary, unit of composition.
The sonnet has undergone many it-
de 1860, sufri un temprano e importante cambio cuando Sholes y Glidden

establecieron el sistema QWERTY poco
despus de 1870. Esta configuracin
de las letras, en un orden no alfabtico,
permiti un incremento en la eficacia y la
exactitud. Cada tecla de la mquina de
escribir tiene correlacin con letras y caracteres especficos. La estructura no es
lineal ni tampoco jerrquica; cada letra
y cada carcter equivale a todos los dems. Adems, el espacio en blanco en-
obras individuales. Significativamente,

es el tamao de las palabras, ms que su
significado, lo que con frecuencia determina las formas para Andre. Anterior a
esto, es la mquina de escribir la que determina las posibilidades de las figuras.
Debemos recordar que la poesa fue
primeramente una prctica oral y que
fue solamente a travs del desarrollo de
la tecnologa que el lenguaje pudo ser
permanentemente inscrito sobre un plano visual. Consciente de esta tradicin,
Andre afirma, en 3 Vector Model: para
m, la poesa ha sido ms bien cuestin
de escritura y de lectura y de impresin
que cuestin de canto si la poesa puede ser descrita como lenguaje delineado
en un arte superfluo y anteriormente era
lenguaje trazado en msica, ahora creo
que se trata del lenguaje delineado en
algn aspecto de arte visual 2. En este
contexto, Andre recuerda la atraccin
visual de la poesa que conoci de nio.
Comparado con la prosa, la cual es en
su mayor parte transcrita en bloques de
texto rectangular del tamao de una pgina, las formas tradicionales de poesa
permiten formar muchsimas figuras
diversas. En este sentido, la figura o la
forma es el punto de partida formal de
Andre. Con frecuencia, Andre maneja la
unidad de la palabra teniendo en mente
la forma.
La primera obra que encontramos en la
instalacin de Chinati, one hundred son-
Fig. 2: Fro m on e h un dr e d s o nn e t s , I F l o w e r , 19 6 3 .
work of Andres is often referenced,

but rarely explored; this brief reading is a movement toward deeper engagement with this significant body
of work.
The typewriter, invented in the 1860s,
underwent an early and important
change when Sholes & Glidden established the Q W E R T Y system in
the 1870s. This non-alphabetical arrangement allowed for increased accuracy and efficiency. Each key on
the typewriter correlates to specific
letters and characters. The structure
is non-linear, non-hierarchical; each
letter and character is equivalent to
every other letter and character. Additionally, the blank space between
characters is not negative space, but
the consequence of physical activity
by the maker in his or her interaction with the space, return, and tab
keys. Both Judds 100 untitled works
in mill aluminum and Andres Words
bear the mark of the machines used
to create them.
As we shall see, Andre treats the
individual words of the English language with equivalence, allowing
him to employ additive and subtractive functions on chosen, decidedly
traditional forms, including lyric,
ode, biography and novel, etc. These
processes allow him to isolate and
reinvent the genres, while simultaneously drawing fresh attention to
the individual words. The potential
equivalence of words, which allows
for subtractive and additive functions, are features of language, yet
these features are not where Andre
begins. Significantly, it is the length
of the words, rather than meaning,
which often determines the forms for
Andre. Previous to this, it is the typewriter which determines the possibilities of the shapes.
We must remember that poetry was
first an oral practice and that it is
only through the development of technology that language could be permanently inscribed on a visual plane.
Keenly aware of this tradition, Andre
states in 3 Vector Model, for me poetry has largely been a matter of writing and of reading and of printing
and not a matter of singingif poetry can be described as language
mapped on an extraneous art and
formerly it was language mapped on
music, I think now that it is language
mapped on some aspect of visual
arts.2 In this context, Andre recalls
the visual appeal of poetry he experienced as a child. As compared to
prose, which is largely transcribed in
page-size rectangular blocks of text,
the traditional forms of poetry allow
nets, I flower (1963), cien sonetos,

Yo flor, rompe formas visuales tradicionales y usa la palabra como unidad
solitaria de cimentacin y composicin.
El soneto ha sufrido muchas interacciones o repeticiones durante los ltimos
quinientos aos; sin embargo, tradicionalmente, consiste en 14 lneas o versos
con una estructura de rima variable. De
hecho, el soneto de Dante no es el mismo
que el de Shakespeare o el de Spenser y
ciertamente difiere de los sonetos de verso libre de Ted Berrigan. Los one hundred
sonnets de Andre siguen el esquema de
catorce versos, pero hacen caso omiso a
otras tendencias de la forma.
erations during the past five hundred

years, yet traditionally consists of
fourteen lines with a variable rhyming structure. Indeed, the sonnet of
Dante is not the same as the sonnet
of Shakespeare or of Spenser and
certainly differs from the free verse
sonnets by Ted Berrigan. Andres one
hundred sonnets follows the fourteen
line structure, but disregards all other
tendencies of the form.
Andre created each sonnet in the
shape of a rectangle, situated slightly
above center on the page. Each sonnet consists of one word, repeated
to fill the shape. For example, he begins with personal pronouns (I, you,
tre caracteres no es un espacio negativo,

sino que viene siendo la consecuencia de
la actividad fsica por el hacedor en su
interaccin con las teclas de letra, espacio y el tabulador. Tanto las 100 Untitled
Works in Mill-Aluminum de Judd como
las Words de Andre llevan la marca del
las mquinas utilizadas para crearlas.
Como veremos, Andre maneja las palabras individuales del idioma ingls con
equivalencia, permitindole emplear
funciones que incrementan y disminuyen en ciertas formas, incluyendo la
lrica, la oda, la novela biogrfica, etc.
Estos procedimientos le permiten aislar
y reinventar los gneros, mientras simultneamente atrae nueva atencin a las
22
Andre cre cada soneto siguiendo la figura de un rectngulo, situado un poco

ms arriba del centro de la pgina. Cada
soneto consiste en una palabra repetida
para llenar o completar la figura. Por
ejemplo, comienza con pronombres
personales (I, you, he, she, it, we, they),
pero luego comienza a nombrar caractersticas fsicas (head, hair, face cock
piss), algunos colores (black, red,
orange), algunos nmeros (zero, one,
two ten), algunos elementos (carbn,
sulfur, copper) y fenmenos naturales
(sky, sun, moon bird, sea flower). El
soneto de Andre es la palabra singular,
el nombre o el pronombre repetidos.
Esta obra consiste en 99 pginas de
Caitlin Murray typetypetypetypetypetypetype: Las palabras de Carl Andre
exists within the line ironironrion

and the word bowel within elbowelbowelbow. While the unit of
each sonnet appears most clearly to
be the word, the fixed-width spacing
allows the reader to also see each individual letter clearly, suggesting that
the unit of the work might be both
the word and the smallest unit of the
English language, the letter.
one hundred sonnets, Iflower, suggests that the starting place of read-
secuencias de una sola palabra en cuadrcula; sin embargo, como sabemos,

el ttulo es one hundred sonnets. A la
instalacin le falta un soneto o, con ms
probabilidad, Andre sugiere que el ttulo
mismo de la pgina constituye en s un
soneto. Andre desafa la forma tradicional del soneto dos veces, pidindole
al lector que considere cmo una sola
palabra repetida en una construccin
de catorce lneas o versos puede ser un
soneto, y adems, cmo un ttulo one
caracteres, dependiendo en el nmero

de letras de cada palabra. Por ejemplo,
Andre principia con el pronombre I
(yo) refirindose a s mismo, repetido
horizontalmente 30 veces, mientras que
unos sonetos ms tarde, repite la palabra de 4 letras head (cabeza), siete
veces para producir una lnea que sea
de 28 caracteres de largo, y as sucesivamente.
La repeticin de la forma a travs de la
obra de Andre sugiere una equivalencia
entre diferentes palabras. La estructura
cuadricular iguala las unidades de palabras, sugiriendo una equivalencia no
sintctica entre cada una. Andre gesticula hacia numerosas comparaciones sin
igual o como construccin de la smil.
Notablemente, la accin que conecta se
reserva para el lector. Adems, podemos
suponer que leer un poema consistente
en una sola palabra colocada en estructura rectangular podra resultar demasiado fcil. Si bien se mira, no es ste el
caso. Al intentar leer el soneto elbow
(codo) palabra por palabra, uno puede
fcilmente perderse. Esta confusin visual se acenta debido a la falta de espacio entre las unidades de palabras. El
nombre de roni existe dentro del rengln ironironiron (hierro) y la palabra
bowel (intestino) dentro de elbowelbowelbow. Mientras que la unidad de
cada soneto aparenta ms claramente
ser la palabra, la anchura del espacio
ya fija permite al lector ver tambin cada
una de las letras claramente, sugiriendo
que la unidad de cada obra pudiera ser
Fig. 3: fro m S hape an d Str u ct u r e , 19 6 3 .
he, she, it, we, they) but moves to

physical features (head, hair, face
cock piss), colors (black, red, orange), numbers (zero, one, two
ten), elements (carbon, sulfur, copper), and natural phenomenon/
nature (sky, sun, moonbird, sea
flower). Andres sonnet is the singular word, noun or pronoun, repeated. [fig. 2]
This work consists of ninety-nine pages of gridded one-word sequences,
yet, as we know, the title is one hundred sonnets. Either the installation
is one sonnet short, or, alternatively
and more convincingly, Andre suggests that the title page itself is also
a sonnet. Andre challenges the traditional form of the sonnet twice,
asking the viewer to consider how
a single word repeated in a fourteen
line construction can be a sonnet,
and also how a title, one hundred
sonnets, Iflower, printed once, may
also be a sonnet.
The gridded-square structure of the
sonnet is the key visual component
of the work, a feature made possible
through the use of the fixed-width
character setting of the typewriter.
Each character occupies approximately the same amount of space,
and each sonnet is composed of a
set number of these units, either 392
or 400, depending on the number
of letters in each word. Andre sets
the approximate visual rule for the
characters and word units, creating
lines of either twenty-eight or thirty
characters depending on the number
of letters in each word. For example,
Andre begins with the self-referential
pronoun I repeated thirty times
across, while a few sonnets later he
repeats the four-letter word head
seven times to produce a line that
is twenty-eight characters long, and
so on.
The repetition of form throughout
the work suggests an equivalency
amongst different words. The grid
structure equalizes the word units,
suggesting a non-syntactical equivalence between each. Andre gestures
toward numerous comparisons without the like or as construction of
the simile. Notably, the connective
action is reserved for the reader/
viewer. Also, we may presume that
reading a poem consisting of a
single word in a simple rectangular
structure would be facile. Upon examination, this is not the case. In attempting to read the sonnet elbow,
word by word, one will easily lose
ones place. This visual confusion is
accentuated by the lack of spacing
between word units. The name roni
ambas: la palabra y la unidad ms pequea del idioma ingls, la letra.

one hundred sonnets, I flower, sugiere
que el punto de partida de la lectura y
el significado a travs del idioma escrito
o impreso es la orientacin visual de las
palabras en el espacio. En este caso, el
significado se logra a travs de las relaciones de las palabras como unidades
simples en una pgina, no a travs de
la frecuente relacin sintctica habitual
o prescrita de sustantivos, verbos, sujetos, etc.
ing and meaning-making through

written or printed language is the
visual orientation of words in space.
In this instance, meaning is made
through relationships of words as
singular units on a page, not through
the often prescribed or habitual syntactic relationship of nouns, verbs,
subjects, etc.
Located beside and congruent to one
hundred sonnets, Shape and Structure (1963), a work that even more
firmly announces the importance of
the visual in Andres poetic practice,
reduces the linguistic content of the
work to a series of characters: periods, commas, consecutive dashes,
hundred sonnets, I flower impreso

una sola vez puede tambin constituir
un soneto.
La estructura de la cuadrcula del soneto
es la clave visual de la obra, una caracterstica hecha posible a travs del uso
de la anchura ya fija de la disposicin de
los caracteres en la mquina de escribir.
Cada carcter ocupa aproximadamente el mismo espacio y cada soneto est
compuesto de un nmero fijo de estas
unidades, ya sean trescientas noventa
y dos, o cuatrocientas, dependiendo del
nmero de letras de cada palabra. Andre fija la regla visual aproximada de
los caracteres y las unidades de la palabra, creando lneas o versos de 28 30
23
Ubicado enseguida y congruente con

one hundred sonnets, Shape and Structure (1963), una obra, que an ms
firmemente confirma la importancia del
aspecto visual en la prctica potica de
Andre, reduce el contenido lingstico de
la obra a una serie de caracteres: puntos, comas, guiones consecutivos, diagonales invertidas, y el asterisco. Aqu vemos tringulos, patrones cuadriculados,
y construcciones basadas en dos lneas
con elementos cruciformes, los que traen
a nuestra memoria las composiciones de
Supremaca de Malevich. La paleta de
Andre sigue siendo determinada por
las teclas disponibles de la mquina de
escribir.
backslashes, and the asterisk. Here

we see triangles, grid patterns, and
two line-based constructions with cruciform elements reminiscent of Malevichs Suprematist compositions. Andres palette remains determined by
the available keys on the typewriter.
Reducing our focus to three of the ten
installed works in this series, looking
to the triangles only, we notice that
despite their approximate similarity
in size and form, the internal constructions of the triangles consist of
different characters of the keyboard.
Andre creates three distinct triangles,
one of backslashes and two of period marks. The backslash triangle
is equilateral, with thirty-three backslashes on all sides. [fig. 3] Andre
builds this triangle by centering the
first dash in the middle of the page
and then adding one dash per line
outward from the central position.
He uses a similar pattern to construct
the triangles composed of periods.
We should also consider that both
the characters and the non-visible,
space, tab, and return keys are necessary to create this work. For example, to center the first dash of the
equilateral triangle, Andre must have
systematically controlled the amount
of blank space he was adding.
By imposing a similar form on these
characters in the shape of the triangle, Andre equates the dash, the period, and perhaps the blank space,
in a manner akin to the equivalence
of words in the gridded constructions
of the sonnets.
The period and dash are not characters of the English alphabet, nor do
they generally hold meaning when
separated from a syntactic construction, although we must be mindful
of exceptions, notably Morse code
and Braille. Yet, if we consider the
arbitrary relationship of a word or
symbol to a concept, we can more
clearly see a connection between
the seemingly non-linguistic works
in Shape and Structure and Andres
sonnets. For example, if the personal
pronoun I were instead represented in writing or printing as a . then
Andres first sonnet would be composed on 400 .s instead of 400
Is. The process is the same; it is the
symbol that has been altered.
If we start with the assumption that
all the keys on the keyboard contain
potential meanings, we can better
understand Andres play, not only in
Shape and Structure, but in all of the
works in Words. Traditionally, poets
used various words in relationship
to one another in a syntactic and
formal structure to create meaning.
In his sonnets, Andre suggests connections by subtracting syntax, focusing instead on the equivalence
of nouns and pronouns in repetition.
In Shape and Structure, Andre uses
printed elements of syntax (commas,
periods, dashes, asterisks) to create
visual forms. Similar to Andres use
of hair, yellow sea in one
hundred sonnets, these purely visual,
but decidedly linguistic, elements
have an objective nature, which
aligns them, perhaps surprisingly,
with each other.
In 144 Times (Lament for the Children) (19621965), we see Andre
again adding a consecutive array
of characters to create a particular order in shape. Categorized as
an ode, 144 Times (Lament for the
Children), consists of 144 four-letter
words organized into eight triangles
per page over three pages. Each triangle is six lines long and begins
with one word in the first line (i.e.,
hole). Andre then added a new word
to the beginning of each consecutive
line to create frog holecave frog
holeleaf hook hill cave frog hole.
[fig. 4] This is another instance of
the shape determining the number of
letters per word and the number of
words per line. It is perhaps a consequence of the fixed-width typewriter
that prompts Andre to pay particular
attention to the number of letters in
words, for by doing so he can repeat
predictable shapes. We find Andre
grouping words with the same number of letters throughout Words; in
fact this might be one of the works
most common features. Here again
we may question whether the word
or letter is the fundamental unit of
construction.
Throughout this work, Andre explores
how writing that does not follow traditional prescriptions of genre can
still bear some relationship to the
genre in question. Also, we again
see Andre employing a largely nounbased vocabulary, free of syntactic
considerations. Yet, two key differences, accumulation and duration,
separate the process of reading 144
Times from the process of reading
one hundred sonnets. For example,
one can attempt to make sense of the
initial addition of a few nouns, as in
the case of cave frog hole, yet this
accumulative process quickly calls
into question the issue of sense-making. Can we make as much sense
from cave frog hole as leaf hook
hill cave frog hole? Also, in contrast to the consistent line lengths of
the sonnets, the varying line lengths
of 144 Laments calls attention to the
Reduciendo mi enfoque a tres de las

diez obras instaladas en esta serie, mirando hacia los tringulos nicamente,
nos fijamos que a pesar de su similitud
en tamao y forma, las construcciones
internas de los tringulos consisten en
diferentes caracteres del teclado. Andre
crea tres distintos tringulos; uno hecho
de diagonales invertidas y dos hechos
a base de marcas usando puntos. El
tringulo de diagonales invertidas es
equiltero, conteniendo treinta y tres
diagonales invertidas por cada uno de
los lados. Andre construye este tringulo
al centrar la primera diagonal a media
pgina y luego agregando una diagonal
por rengln hacia afuera, a partir de la
posicin central. Usa un patrn similar
para construir los tringulos compuestos
de puntos. Tambin debemos considerar
que tanto los caracteres, como los espacios no visibles, el tabulador y la tecla de
interlineacin son necesarios para crear
esta obra. Por ejemplo, para centrar la
primera diagonal del tringulo equiltero, Andre debi sistemticamente controlar la cantidad de espacio en blanco que estaba aadiendo. Al imponer
una forma similar de estos caracteres en
la figura de un tringulo, Andre iguala
la diagonal, el punto, y tal vez el espacio
en blanco, de una manera parecida a la
equivalencia de las palabras en las construcciones cuadriculares de los sonetos.
El punto y el guin no son caracteres del
alfabeto ingls. Ni tampoco tienen ningn significado cuando se encuentran
separados de una construccin sintctica, aunque debemos tener en mente
algunas excepciones, o sean, el cdigo
Morse y el sistema Braille. Sin embargo,
si consideramos la relacin arbitraria de
una palabra o un smbolo con un concepto, podemos ver ms claramente la
conexin entre las obras aparentemente
no lingsticas en Shape and Structure y
los sonetos de Andre. Por ejemplo, si en
vez del pronombre personal I (yo), se
representara en la escritura o impresin
como un . entonces el primer soneto de
Andre estara compuesto de 400 .s en
vez de 400 Ies. El proceso es el mismo;
es el smbolo el que ha sido alterado.
Si comenzamos con la suposicin de que
todas las claves del teclado contienen
significados potenciales, podemos entender mejor el juego de Andre, no slo
en Shape and Structure, sino en todas
sus obras contenidas en Words. Tradicionalmente, los poetas usaban varias
palabras relacionadas unas con las
otras en estructura formal y sintctica
para crear el significado. En sus sonetos,
Andre sugiere conexiones eliminando la
sintaxis, enfocndose preferentemente
en la equivalencia de sustantivos y pronombres en repeticin. En Shape and
Structure, Andre usa elementos impre24
sos de sintaxis (comas, puntos, guiones,

asteriscos) para crear formas visuales.
Similar al uso de hair, yellow sea
en one hundred sonnets, I flower stos
meramente visuales, pero decididamente elementos lingsticos, tienen una naturaleza objetiva, la cual los alinea, tal
vez sorprendentemente, entre s.
En 144 Times (Lament for the Children)
(19621965) 144 Veces (Lamento por
los nios), otra vez, vemos a Andre acumulando una gran seleccin consecutiva
de caracteres para crear un orden especial en la forma. Categorizada como
oda, 144 Times (Lament for the Children)
consiste en 144 palabras de cuatro letras
organizadas en ocho tringulos por pgina, utilizando tres pginas. Cada tringulo tiene seis versos de largo y comienza
con una palabra en la primera lnea (o
sea, hole). Luego, Andre aadi una
nueva palabra al principio de cada lnea
consecutiva para crear frog hol cave
frog hole leaf hook hill cave frog hole).
Esta es otra instancia en la que la forma
determina el nmero de letras por palabra y el nmero de palabras por rengln.
Es tal vez una consecuencia de la anchura
fija de la mquina de escribir que hace
que Andre preste particular atencin al
nmero de letras en las palabras, ya que
al hacer esto, l puede repetir formas
predecibles. Vemos que Andre agrupa
palabras con el mismo nmero de letras
a travs de Words; es ms, sta pudiera
ser una de las caractersticas ms comunes de sus obras. Aqu, de nuevo, podemos cuestionar si es la palabra o la letra
la unidad fundamental de construccin.
A travs de esta obra, Andre explora
cmo la escritura que no sigue las tradicionales prescripciones de gnero puede
todava tener alguna relacin con el gnero en cuestin. Adems, podemos ver
a Andre empleando un amplio vocabulario basado en sustantivos, libre de consideraciones sintcticas. Sin embargo, dos
diferencias claves, la acumulacin y la
duracin, separan el proceso de la lectura de 144 Times del proceso de la lectura
de one hundred sonnets. Por ejemplo,
uno puede intentar buscarle el sentido
a la aadidura inicial de unos cuantos
sustantivos, como en el caso de cave
frog hole; sin embargo, este proceso
nos hace cuestionar inmediatamente el
sentido. Podemos hallarle tanto sentido
a cave frog hole como a leaf hook hill
cave frog hole? Adems, el contraste
con la longitud consistente de las lneas
de los sonetos, la longitud variable de
las lneas en 144 Laments llama la atencin a la duracin variable de la lectura,
produciendo un efecto visual y temporal radicalmente diferente. Andre crea
lneas o versos con duraciones de lectura
particulares y diversas, reconociendo el
proceso de lectura temporal.
Caitlin Murray typetypetypetypetypetypetype: Carl Andres W OR D S
variable duration of reading, producing a radically different visual and

temporal effect. Andre creates lines
with differing and particular reading durations, acknowledging more
blatantly the temporal process of
reading.
With Still a Novel (1972), Andre
introduces syntax, proper nouns,
dates, upper and lower case letters,
and recognizable phrases. Though
still employing the grid structure, he
engages a more complex array of
shapes and sizes, which produce
distinct complications for the reader.
Instead of constructing consecutive
phrases or sentences from left to
right, Andre ambiguates the left to
right reading sequence. Read from
left to right, the phrases are nonsensical. To clearly read the opening
dedicatory phrase of Still a Novel
(Still the novel for Hollis Frampton
and Sol LeWitt NYC November 1972
Carl Andre), one must read halfway
across the initial line, from left to
right, then transition to the second
line and so on to complete the statement. [fig. 5]
Still a Novel challenges the reader
to again ponder now familiar questions of genre: In what way are we
to consider this work a novel? Or
perhaps we are to consider the alternative meaning of the word novel.
Returning to the opening dedication,
we discover Andres curious switch of
the article a in the title for the in
the initial statement. This presents another set of questions, that of the general and the particular. Is this work
still a novel in the general sense?
Or, still the novel in the particular?
Can it be both at the same time?
Employing repetition, overlay, and
isolation, Andre presents what appears to be a factual account of
particular moments in the life of nineteenth century English photographer
Eadweard Muybridge, one of the fathers of the moving image. For example, Andre writes, Stanford commissioning Muybridge to photograph his
horses in full stride, which alludes
to Muybridges now famous series
of photographs, The Horse in Motion. Yet, Andre has titled this work
a novel, a genre designation usually
reserved for works of fiction. Through
visual ambiguity, Andre forces the
reader to both parse and construe
the visual, textual, and factual meaning of the work. Andre repeats different parts of the or a story multiple times, in each instance adding
and subtracting words. NO R T H
P OIN T DOC K ABOU T 1 8 6 8
EAD W EA R D M UYB R IDGE
HI M SE L F SI T T ING ON T HE
DOC K b e c o m e s , NO R T H
P OIN T DOC K ABOU T 1 8 6 8
M UYB R IDGE SI T T ING ON
T HE DOC K . How does Andres
removal of Eadweard and himself alter our understanding of the
setting? Or does it? Do both sentences convey equivalent information? Is
this a sentence from a novel or from a
work of nonfiction? In a 1975 review
of Carl Andre: Words in the forms
of poems, at John Weber Gallery,
Roberta Smith noted that Andres sentences seem like they might be captions to photographs, and that they
convey the narration as a series
of stills, implying without directly portraying action.3 It is the gerund construction used in the word sitting
in Muybridge himself sitting on the
dock, for example, that allows for
this apt interpretation.
Although Andre actively constructs
a visual form that is ambiguous
and difficult for the reader to parse,
he provides visual cues to aid the
readers comprehension. By blending majuscule and miniscule keyboard characters Andre imbeds the
pattern necessary for comprehension
within the formal framework of Still
a Novel. However, even with this
cue, the work remains difficult to
read. This formal difficulty is perhaps
a comment on the conceptual difficulty of separating fact from fiction
or determining what is part of the
story and what is the whole story.
We might consider Still a Novel less
a recollection of facts from Eadweard
Muybridges life and more a reflection on what it means to write (or
read) a novel, biography, caption,
photograph, or film. Conceived of as
a series of captions, Still a Novel,
becomes a work of text created from
visual information, as opposed to text
formed from text. Therefore, the work
might also be gesturing to the difficulty of describing visual information
in language. The multifarious nature
of the gerund used to create these
caption-like sentences is perhaps suggestive of the immense multiplicity of
verbs, subjects, and objects that can
be used to describe a moment made
static, and therefore easier to comprehend, by the photograph.
In the final case, the reader encounters one of the most curious works
in the installation, although visually
it is one of the most simple. In preface to my work itself, Andre typed
the following twenty-one words in
five lines of varying lengths (number of words, letters, and character
spaces): in, is, my, of, art, the, into,
En Still a Novel (1972), Andre introduce la sintaxis, nombres propios, fechas,

letras maysculas y minsculas y frases
reconocibles. Aunque todava emplea
la estructura cuadricular, capta una
seleccin ms compleja de formas y
tamaos, las cuales producen distintas
complicaciones para el lector. En vez de
construir frases consecutivas u oraciones
escritas de izquierda a derecha, Andre
hace ambigua la secuencia de lectura de
izquierda a derecha. Ledas de izquierda
a derecha, las frases no tienen sentido.
Para leer claramente la primera frase de
la dedicatoria de Still a Novel (Still the
novel for Hollis Frampton and Sol LeWitt
NYC November 1972 Carl Andre),
uno debe leer hasta la mitad de la lnea
inicial, de izquierda a derecha, luego
cambiar al segundo rengln y as sucesivamente para completar el enunciado.
Still a Novel desafa al lector a que una
vez ms contemple cuestiones de gnero
ahora familiares: De qu manera se supone que consideremos esta obra como
novela? O tal vez debemos considerar el
significado alterno de la palabra novela. Volviendo a las primeras palabras
de la dedicatoria, descubrimos el curioso
cambio que hace Andre del artculo indefinido un en el ttulo por el artculo
definido el en el enunciado inicial. Esto
suscita otra serie de preguntas relativas
a lo general y lo particular. Es esta obra
still a novel (todava una novela) en
sentido general? O, still the novel (todava la novela) en lo particular? Podra
ser ambas cosas a la vez?
Empleando la repeticin, la yuxtaposicin y el aislamiento, Andre presenta
lo que parece ser algo que se atiene a
los hechos o momentos en particular en
la vida del fotgrafo ingls del siglo XIX
Eadweard Muybridge, uno de los padres
de la imagen en movimiento. Por ejemplo, Andre escribe: Stanford comisiona
a Muybridge a fotografiar sus caballos
en plena carrera, una alusin a la ahora famosa serie de fotografas tomadas
por Muybridge conocida como El caballo
en movimiento. No obstante, Andre ha
denominado a esta obra novela, una
designacin de gnero reser vada usualmente para las obras de ficcin. A travs
de la ambigedad visual, Andre obliga
al lector a dos cosas: analizar e interpretar sintcticamente el significado visual,
textual y el que se atiene a los hechos de
la obra. Andre repite diferentes partes de
the story o a story (la historia o una
historia) mltiples veces, en cada instancia agregando o eliminando palabras
M U E L L E E N E L P U N T O N O R T E
APROXIMADAMENTE 1868 EL
PROPIO EADWEARD MUYBRIDG E S E N TA D O E N E L M U E L L E
se vuelve M U E L L E E N E L P U N T O
NORTE
APROXIMADAMENTE
25
1868
MUYBRIDGE
S E N TA D O
E N E L M U E L L E . Cmo altera Andre nuestro entendimiento de la escena

al quitarle las palabras Eadweard y
el propio? O qu s lo altera? Nos
transmiten ambas oraciones informacin equivalente? Es sta una oracin
proveniente de una novela o de una obra
de no ficcin? En una resea presentada
en la Galera John Weber en 1975 y titulada Carl Andre: Words in the form
of poems, Roberta Smith hizo notar que
las oraciones de Andre parecen como si
fueran leyendas o subttulos de fotografas y que transmiten la narracin
como una serie de imgenes sin movimiento, implicando accin sin mostrarla
directamente 3. Es la construccin usada
en ingls del gerundio en la palabra sitting Muybridge himself sitting on the
dock, por ejemplo, la que permite esta
interesante interpretacin.
Aunque Andre construye activamente
una forma visual ambigua y difcil para
que el lector la contemple, le da claves
visuales para ayudar a la comprensin
Mezclando caracteres de las teclas en
mayscula y minscula, Andre provee
el patrn necesario para la comprensin dentro de un marco formal de Still
a Novel. Sin embargo, incluso con el uso
de esta clave, la obra resulta difcil de
leer. Esta dificultad formal es tal vez un
comentario en la dificultad conceptual de
separar los hechos de la ficcin o de determinar cul es solamente una parte de
la historia y cul es la historia completa.
Podramos considerar Still a Novel menos como coleccin que como recoleccin
de hechos de la vida de Eadweard Muybridge y ms como reflexin de los que
significa escribir (o leer) una novela, una
biografa, un subttulo, una fotografa, o
una pelcula. Concebida como una serie
de leyendas o subttulos, Still a Novel se
convierte en una obra de texto creado a
partir de informacin visual, a diferencia de un texto creado con base en otro
texto. Por lo tanto, la obra podra aludir
tambin a la dificultad de describir la
informacin visual usando el lenguaje.
La muy diversa naturaleza del gerundio
usado para crear estas oraciones que
parecen leyendas o subttulos es tal vez
sugerente de la inmensa multiplicidad de
verbos, sujetos y objetos que se pueden
usar para describir un momento vuelto
esttico y, por lo tanto, ms fcil de comprender por medio de la fotografa.
En ltima instancia, el lector se encuentra
con una de las obras ms curiosas de la
instalacin, aunque visualmente es una
de las ms sencillas. En preface to my
work itself, Andre escribi las siguientes
21 palabras en cinco renglones de longitudes variadas (nmero de palabras, letras, y espacios de caracteres): (in, is, my,
of, art, the, into, made, same, this, work,
26
Fig. 4: fro m 144 T im es (La me nt for t he C hi ld re n ), 19621965.
27
Fig. 5: FRO M Sti ll A No ve l, 197 2.
made, same, this, work, parts, piled,

piles, broken, pieces, stacks, clastic,
stacked, identical, interchangeable.
Is this simply a list? Are they words
excised from a larger piece of writing? Why is this work placed at the
end of the installation, instead of
the beginning? And, most curiously,
what does the qualifier work speak
to? This last question has a handful
of possible answers. Andres term,
work, may reference the pieces the
reader has already encountered, or
perhaps his entire body of writing.
Or, he may define work as the objects made in his sculptural practice.
Alternatively, Andre might be using
the term work as a stand-in for his
entire artistic practice, combining
both his writing and sculpture. The
non-specificity of the word work allows for many possible connotations,
without the possibility of identifying
its denotation.
Including words from many of the
eight parts of speech, preface to my
work itself relies primarily on a foundation of nouns and adjectives. It is
important to note that only through
context do many of these words gain
significance. Work, for instance,
can be used as a noun, adjective,
or verb. Despite Andres statement,
Things in their elements, not in their
relations, it is nearly impossible in
the act of seeing or reading to isolate elements from their physical, linguistic, or conceptual surroundings.4
When Andre places piled, piles,
pieces on the same row, one notices
the linguistic connection of alliteration and considers the meaning of the
words in relationship to one another.
Yet, when pondering the relationship
of Andres writing to his sculptures,
one cannot help but attempt to derive
larger connections between words
such as, piecesstacksclastic
stacked.interchangeable and,
for example, Manifest Destiny, a
sculpture composed of eight stacked
bricks, permanently installed in Donald Judds Spring Street residence.
[fig. 6] To see things in their elements, not in their relations, is simply one form of seeing. It is a perspective, not a necessity.
That the words used in preface to
my work itself can describe some
of Andres sculptures is unquestionable, yet this understanding does
not speak to form or process. Taken
as a whole, Andres Words display
both a words potential as referent,
and also, when made visual, its objective and spatial possibilities. The
acknowledgement of this consideration makes possible a viable and
potent connection between Andres

writings and his sculptures. Though
again disrupting the distinction between singular elements and their relationships, the connection between
these two practices allows for a push
and pull between the writings and
the sculptures. Questioning the relationship between cave frog hole
in 144 Laments is not a dissimilar
process from exploring the parts and
whole of Andres Chinati Thirteener
installed at the Chinati Foundation in
2010. How does each of the units of
hot-rolled steel relate to one another
in space? We might also remember
that historically a sonnet was referred
to as a Fourteener and that there
are fourteen sections of gravel created by the placement of the thirteen
units of steel. In this instance, both
paper altered by the tactile strikes of
keyboard characters, and steel, cut
by shears, can provoke similar questions of process and form.
While Andre placed his Words in a
context largely devoted to visual art,
these works benefit from textual analysis. However, to focus solely on their
textual or visual elements is to misunderstand their hybrid nature, which is
one and at the same time textual and
visual. Andres claim that his poetry
is language mapped on some aspect
of visual arts prompts us to acknowledge, from our own experience, that
this work fully engages both.
parts, piled, piles, broken, pieces, stacks,

clastic, stocked, identical, interchangeable.) Es esto simplemente una lista? Estn estas palabras sacadas de un escrito
ms largo? Por qu se encuentra esta
obra colocada al final de la instalacin
en vez de al principio? Y ms raro an,
a qu se refiere el calificativo work
(trabajo)? Esta ltima pregunta tiene un
posible manojo de respuestas. El trmino
work puede hacer referencia a las obritas que el lector ya se haba encontrado o
tal vez a su escrito entero. O puede que
Andre defina work como los objetos
hechos en el ejercicio de su obra escultural. Alternativamente, el artista pudiera
estar usando el trmino work como un
substituto de su ejercicio artstico completo, combinando ambos, sus escritos y su
escultura. La ambigedad de la palabra
work admite muchas connotaciones
posibles, sin la posibilidad de identificar
definitivamente lo que denota.
Incluyendo palabras de varias de las
ocho partes de la oracin, preface to my
work itself (1963), se basa primordialmente en un cimiento de sustantivos y
adjetivos. Es muy importante notar que
solamente a travs del contexto puedan
muchos de estos vocablos obtener significado. Work, por ejemplo, puede usarse en ingls como sustantivo, adjetivo o
verbo. A pesar del enunciado de Andre,
las cosas dentro de sus elementos, no en
sus relaciones, es casi imposible en el
acto de ver o de leer, aislar los elementos
de sus entornos fsicos, lingsticos y con-
y espaciales. El reconocimiento de esta

consideracin hace posible una conexin
viable y potente entre los escritos de Andre y sus esculturas. Aunque otra vez se
rompa la distincin entre los elementos
singulares y sus relaciones, la conexin
entre estas dos prcticas permite un estire y afloje entre los escritos y las esculturas. Cuestionando la relacin entre cave
frog hole, en 144 Laments, no es un proceso distinto del de explorar las partes
y la totalidad del Chinati Thirteener de
Andre, instalado en Chinati en 2010.
Cmo es que cada una de las unidades
de acero fundido pudieran relacionarse
una con la otra en el espacio? Podramos
tambin recordar que histricamente
hablando se haca referencia al soneto
como Fourteener y de que hay catorce
secciones de grava creadas por la colocacin de trece lneas de unidades de acero.
En esta instancia, tanto el papel alterado
por los golpes tctiles de los caracteres
del teclado como el acero, cortado por
las tijeras, pueden provocar cuestiones
similares de proceso y de forma.
Mientras Andre coloc su Words dentro
de un contexto mayormente dedicado al
arte visual, estas obras se benefician del
anlisis textual. Sin embargo, enfocarse
solamente en sus elementos textuales y
visuales es malentender su naturaleza
hbrida, la cual es una y a la misma vez
textual y visual. Andre sostiene que su
poesa es lenguaje delineado en algn
aspecto de las artes visuales, lo cual nos
obliga a reconocer, por nuestra propia
experiencia, que esta obra envuelve y
ceptuales 4. Cuando Andre coloca los vocablos piled, piles, pieces, en el mismo
Caitlin Murray is the archivist for the Judd Foun-
rengln, se nota la conexin lingstica
dation. She is pursuing her MA in Art History
de aliteracin y se considera el significa-
from the University of Texas at Austin.
do de las palabras en relacin de una con
compromete a ambos.
Caitlin Murray es Archivista de la Fundacin Judd.
Actualmente estudia su Maestra en Historia del
la otra. Sin embargo, al meditar sobre la
notes
relacin de la escritura de Andre con sus
esculturas, uno no puede menos que pon-
ems, yet this installation consists of many
n o tas
derar las conexiones ms amplias entre
genres of writing as categorized by Andre
vocablos, tales como pieces stacks
on the laminated title card or index that
poemas; sin embargo, esta instalacin
clastic stacked interchangeable
is also part of the installation although
consiste en muchos gneros de escritos tal y
y por ejemplo Manifest Destiny una es-
outside of the cases proper. It is the title
como los categoriz Andre en sus notas. Las
cultura compuesta de ocho ladrillos api-
card that denotes the genre of these writ-
sutilezas de la clasificacin de estas obras
lados, permanentemente instalada en
ings. The issue of classifying these works
como poemas sobrepasan los lmites de este
la residencia de Donald Judd en la va
as poems is more complicated then this
ensayo y requieren un anlisis ms profundo
Spring Street para ver las cosas dentro
essay will allow and requires a deeper
dentro de un contexto potico. No obstante,
de sus elementos, no en sus relaciones
examination of these works within a po-
la cuestin del gnero al que pertenecen es
es simplemente una forma de ver. Es una
etic context. Nevertheless, the question of
una caracterstica clave de estas obras y sur-
perspectiva, no una necesidad.
genre is a key feature of these works and
ge repetidamente en esta discusin.
Muchas de las palabras en preface to my
will appear throughout this discussion.
work itself (prefacio a mi trabajo mismo),
This recording comes from Audio Arts
2) audiocasete de revista. Esta grabacin de
tales como: piled, clastic, stacked, descri-
(Vol. 2, No. 2), an audiocassette periodi-
1973 puede escucharse en lnea a travs de
ben las esculturas de Andre. Sin embar-
cal. This 1973 recording can be accessed
Ubu Web sound.
go, es la construccin de los poemas la
online at UbuWeb sound.
que lleva una similitud ms interesante
cuando se considera la forma y el proceso
Since 1965, pp. 125127.
de estas dos obras en su totalidad. Con-
Carl Andre, cited by Dan Graham, in
Carl Andres Arts Magazine, vol. 42, nm. 3
siderada en su totalidad, Words muestra
Carl Andre, Arts Magazine, vol. 42, no.
(diciembre de 1967 enero de 1968), pg.
ambas cosas: un potencial de la palabra
3 (December 1967January 1968), p.35.
35.
como referente y, tambin, cuando se

vuelve visual, sus posibilidades objetivas
28
Arte de la Universidad de Texas en Austin.
Here I refer to these works as po-
See About Carl Andre: Critical Texts
Aqu me refiero a estas obras como
Esta grabacin Audio Arts (Vol. 2, nm.
Vase: About Carl Andre: Critical Texts
Since 1965, pgs. 125127

4
Carl Andre, citado por Dan Graham, en
Fig. 6:
C a rl A n d r e , Ma n i f e s t D e s t i n y , 19 8 5 .
A s i n s ta ll e d b y D o n a l d J u d d
at 101 Spr i n g Str e e t,
N e w Y o rk C i t y.
Fig. 1: 5 x 20 A l stadt Re cta ng le, K on ra d Fisc he r Ga lle ry, D s se ld o rf, 1967.
e va m e y e r - h e rm a n n
Carl
Andre
Carl Andre: La importancia del lugar
Place
Matters
Eva Meyer-Hermann La importancia del lugar

Mi pltica, la cual es naturalmente en pa-
taban dnde estaba el arte, el galerista
labras, no debera de ninguna manera
slo pudo responder: Pero si es que es-
By now the story has been told many

timesyet it remains a wonderful anecdote about Carl Andres first solo
exhibition in Europe in 1967. Konrad
Fischer invited the American sculptor
for the inaugural show at his gallery
in Dsseldorf. Confronted with the
searching and questioning gaze of
his visitors who asked where the art
was, the gallerist could only answer:
But you are standing on it.
The room, a former passageway
through a tenement building, was
closed on both sides by large window panes. You almost couldnt enter
or pass through without walking over
an array of one hundred steel plates
which Andre had placed side by side
on the floor. Visitors had probably
entered the art gallery with different expectations. They were looking
at the walls expecting to see framed
pictures, or seeking an encounter
with a colorful object on a pedestal.
But none of their expectations were
satisfied. The gallery seemed to be
empty. They might have been drawn
to the opposite exit door, to walk
through the passage, or greeted by
friends standing at a little distance,
inviting them to come closer. People
could have easily missed the art; they
could have overlooked it completely.
This still applies to the appearance
of Andres works in exhibitions today e ven he himself once walked
past a piece of his own without noticing it while visiting a museum and
looking at a painting on the wall.
As we consider an artist who has created about two thousand sculptures
within a half century, these sorts of
observations are still valid. You can
easily not see an Andre; he never
imposes his work on youyet once
you realize with what subtle power
his pieces develop in your world, you
cannot easily omit them from your
field of vision. If you are interested
and if you take the effort to approach
them without preconceptions, they
will begin to stake a claim on your
physical world, and they will change
it. When I first immersed myself in
studies of his work, I came across his
description of what he learned from
his earliest art teachers: that art can
be a joyful experience. At first I didnt
want to believe it, being an art history
student at the time: How could such a
historic figure as this famous Minimal
artist, Carl Andre, tell me this is one
of the most important features of art?
I wanted to analyze the sculptures
through their form and content, to
construct meaning out of it. But I had
imponerse ante ustedes como mi pblico

o mejor dicho como espectadores. Y ya
que no quiero imponerme ante ustedes,
sus opiniones o su percepcin, tratar de
presentar diferentes perspectivas sobre
la obra de Andre.
Un hombre escala una montaa porque
la montaa est ah. Un hombre elabora
The following was first presented as a talk
una obra de arte porque la obra no est
at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX on Octo-
ah.
ber 9, 2010.
Las obras de arte estn ah ahora, y nosotros tenemos que escalar la montaa.
Le puse como ttulo en ingls a mi pl-
My lecture, which naturally is in

words, should by no means impose
on you as listeners o r better, as
viewers. And since I dont want to impose on you, your opinions, or your
perception, Ill try to present different
perspectives on Andres work.
tica Carl Andre: Place Matters, que

es un juego de palabras basado en la
palabra matters (asuntos o importar), y podra leerse ms activamente
como el fenmeno de el lugar es lo que
importa. No voy a fastidiarlos con exploraciones doctas o acadmicas especialmente debido a que yo no s qu tan
A man climbs a mountain because it

is there. A man makes a work of art
because it is not there.
familiarizados estn ustedes con la obra

de Andre. Quienes la conocen bien estn
invitados a disfrutar de los diferentes pasos y los diferentes ritmos que tomar al
The artworks are there now, and we

have to climb the mountain. I titled
my lecture Carl Andre Place Matters, which is a wordplay on what is
thereit is sculpture as place and
it is matters, and it might be more
actively read as the phenomenon of
place that matters. Im not going
to bother you with scholarly explorationsespecially since I dont know
how familiar you are with Andres
work. Those who know him well are
invited to enjoy the different steps and
the different pace I will take along my
mountain climb. And those who
have always asked themselves what
these metal plates are about may find
help in the reason why place matters
or why there is merely place and matter.
What I would like to offer is a four-sided ascension toward Andres work.
First, we will deal with some samples
of sculptures, of place and matter, to which I would like to bring
you closer by precise inductive interpretations. Second, Id like to supply
some interesting biographical facts,
and some genealogical deductions
drawn from Andres life and oeuvre.
Third, a consideration of Andres
work in an art-historical context, to
orient and understand its relation to
the work of other artists. Ill conclude
with some notes on the curatorial approach I followed when conceiving of
what is still, to this day, the largest
retrospective of Andres work, which
took place in Germany in 1996.1
escalar la montaa. Y quienes siempre

se han preguntado cul es el significado
de estas placas de metal, puede que encuentren ayuda en la razn por la cual el
lugar importa o por qu hay meramente
lugar y materia.
Lo que yo quisiera ofrecer es una ascensin hacia la obra de Andre por sus
cuatro costados. Primero, trataremos
con algunas muestras de esculturas, de
lugar y materia, que pretender esclarecer por medio de interpretaciones
inductivas precisas. En segundo lugar,
me gustara proporcionar algunos hechos biogrficos interesantes y algunas
deducciones genealgicas extradas de
la vida y la obra de Andre. En tercer lugar, una consideracin de la obra de Andre en un contexto histrico de arte, con
el fin de orientar y entender su relacin
con la obra de otros artistas. Concluir
con algunas notas sobre mi manera de
aproximarme, como curadora, a lo que
es todava, hasta el da de hoy, la ms
grande retrospectiva de la obra de Andre, que tuvo lugar en Alemania durante
1996. 1
La historia se ha repetido ya muchas veces sin embargo, permanece como una

maravillosa ancdota sobre la primera
exhibicin solo que tuvo Carl Andre en
Europa en 1967. Konrad Fischer invit
al escultor americano a que participara
en la exhibicin inaugural de su galera
en Dsseldorf. Ante la bsqueda y las
preguntas de sus visitantes, que pregun32
tn parados sobre l.
La sala, anteriormente un pasillo a travs
de un edificio de unidades de renta, estaba cerrada por ambos lados por grandes
ventanas. Casi no se poda entrar ni pasar por ah sin caminar sobre una serie
de cien placas de acero, las cuales Andre
haba colocado una al lado de otra en el
piso. Los visitantes estaban mirando las
paredes, esperando ver cuadros enmarcados, o buscando un encuentro con un
objeto colorido sobre un pedestal. Pero
ninguna de sus expectativas se satisfizo.
La galera pareca estar vaca. Podran
haberse sentido atrados hacia la puerta de salida opuesta, a caminar por el
pasillo, o a ser saludados por amigos
reunidos all, a corta distancia, invitndolos a acercarse. La gente fcilmente
podra haber dejado de ver el arte; se
les podra haber pasado completamente.
Esto todava se aplica a la presencia de
las obras de Andre en las exhibiciones
de hoy Andre mismo, en una ocasin,
pas de largo junto a una pieza suya sin
fijarse en ella al visitar un museo, por
andarse fijando en una pintura que colgaba sobre el muro.
Al considerar un artista que ha creado
aproximadamente doscientas esculturas
en menos de medio siglo, esta clase de
obser vaciones son todava vlidas. Fcilmente puede dejarse de ver un Andre;
l nunca impone su trabajo sobre el espectador pero ya que uno se da cuenta
con qu sutil fuerza se desarrollan sus
piezas en el mundo, no se puede fcilmente omitirlas del campo visual. Si uno
se interesa y si se hace el esfuerzo de
acercarse a ellas sin preconcepciones,
stas intentarn apoderarse del mundo
fsico de uno, y lo cambiarn. Cuando
por primera vez me dediqu de lleno a
estudiar su obra, me tropec con su descripcin de lo que l haba aprendido de
sus primeros maestros de arte: que el
arte puede ser una experiencia regocijada. Al principio no quera creerlo, siendo
yo misma una estudiante de historia del
arte en ese tiempo. Cmo podra una
figura tan histrica como este famoso
artista minimalista, Carl Andre, decirme
que sta es una de las caractersticas ms
importantes del arte? Yo quera analizar las esculturas a travs de su forma
y contenido para construir un significado de ello. Pero tuve que confesar que,
mirando sus esculturas horizontales tan
delgadas y planas, me result difcil aplicarles mi mtodo interpretativo.
El artista mismo ha hecho hincapi muchas veces en que las fotografas no pueden reemplazar la experiencia real. l
mismo hasta quiso evitar que se presentaran plticas con diapositivas (como la
que estoy haciendo ahora). Me he visto
Eva Meyer-Hermann Place Matters

yo misma en situaciones donde los integrantes de una mesa redonda acadmica discutan obras de Andre que ellos
slo haban visto en reproducciones, en
diapositivas, nunca en carne propia.
Esta queja podra considerarse como un
lugar comn, y por supuesto se aplica
a toda la experiencia del arte, pero en
el caso de las esculturas de Andre es un
asunto muy importante; su mismo significado estriba en el hecho de que comparten un mismo espacio fsico con uno
mismo. Mas el artista le deja totalmente
la decisin a uno: si no est interesado
en la escultura por el momento, no debe
preocuparse. Esto es lo que l mismo ve
como una cualidad en su obra. El artista
preferira seguramente que yo enfatizara el hecho de que no estoy confrontando a nadie con teoras de ninguna clase,
sino intentando despertar su deseo y su
imaginacin mientras caminan y estn
F ig . 2 : K l n Ste e l L o ck , D e n H a a g , T h e N e t h erla n d s, 1 9 6 8 .
to confess, looking at his horizontal

and very thin and flat sculptures, it
was difficult to apply my interpretative method to them.
The artist himself has stressed many
times that photographs cannot replace actual experience. He even
wanted to prevent slide lectures (like
this one) from using images. And I
have found myself in situations where
academics, on a panel during a
symposium, discuss works by Andre
which they have only seen in slide
reproductions, never having encountered and experienced them in the
flesh. This complaint might be clich,
and of course it applies to all art experience, but in the case of Andres
sculptures it is a very substantial issue;
their very meaning lies in the fact that
they share one physical space with
you. Yet the artist leaves the decision
totally up to you: If youre not interested in sculpture at the moment, you
dont have to worry. This is what he
himself sees as a quality of his work.
It would surely be the wish of the artist for me to emphasize that I am not
confronting you with theories of any
kind, but instead want to trigger your
desire and your imagination while
youre walking around the exhibition.
Andre himself said: Works of mine
begin as desires, not ideas. My works
do not explain the world, they change
it. My sculptures are the result of physical operations in the material world.
Theories are linguistic exercises only.
What physical operations are seen
in the sculpture exhibited in Dsseldorf in 1967? The 5 x 20 Altstadt
Rectangle [fig. 1] consists of 100 hot
rolled steel plates, each measuring 50 centimeters square and half
a centimeter thick. They are placed
side by side and form a 10 meter long
rectangle on the floor, five elements
in width and twenty in length. The
layout almost completely covers the
floor of the gallery, so as a visitor you
have to step onto the material. You
probably feel the hard metal under
your feet, you hear the sound as you
move from one plate to another, and
you try to figure out the shape of the
entire piece while being unable to
see it in its entirety. After looking for
a point of perspective which would
allow you to see as much as possible
of the material you had recognized
as the artwork, youll have to give
up w herever you walk to, no matter which side or which corner of the
space, youll never have a complete
view of this extremely long rectangle.
Nor will you experience the proper
parallelism of a rectangle which you
learned from geometry. This is some-
viendo la exhibicin. Andre mismo dijo:

Mis obras comienzan como deseos, no
como ideas. Mis obras no explican el
mundo; lo cambian. Mis esculturas son
el resultado de operaciones fsicas en
el mundo material. Las teoras son slo
ejercicios lingsticos.
Qu operaciones fsicas se ven en
la escultura exhibida en Dsseldorf en
1967? El Altstadt Rectangle [fig. 1], un
rectngulo de 5 x 20, consiste en cien
placas de acero, cada una de 50 centmetros cuadrados y medio centmetro de
espesor. Estn colocadas una al lado de
thing different: not to be looked at but

to be walked on, something which
makes it clear that your intellectual
conception splits off from your actual
bodily experience.
Each of Andres floor sculptures is
unique not only in its originwhich
usually is indicated by a geographic
indication in the title and date of the
piecebut it will also slightly differ
in the experience of it in each new
installation. Kln Steel Lock [fig. 2]
was part of the first European Minimal Art exhibition in Den Haag in
1968; my installation image shows a
re-installation at the Kunsthalle Dsseldorf in 1990 along with works by
Daniel Buren, Robert Morris, and others. You can hardly see the features
of this piece in the photograph. It is
similar to the Altstadt Rectangle in
that it takes the shape of a rectangle
(which you can still never properly
see without distortion), but its single
elements are much larger; they are
100 x 100 centimeters and their thickness amounts to double that of the Altstadt piece. Each plate lies firmly next
to its neighbor on the floor; you can
almost feel the weight, which seems
close to the maximum amount a single
human can lift. However large some
la otra y forman un rectngulo de diez

metros de largo sobre el piso, cinco elementos de anchura y veinte de longitud.
Su disposicin cubre casi completamente
el piso de la galera, as que al visitar la
instalacin, uno tiene que pisar el material. Probablemente se siente el duro
metal bajo los pies, se oye el sonido
conforme avanza uno de una placa a la
otra y trata de imaginarse la forma de la
pieza entera mientras se ve imposibilitado a mirarla en su totalidad. Despus de
buscar un punto de perspectiva, el cual le
permitiera ver la mayor cantidad posible
del material que haba reconocido como
obra de arte, tendra uno que darse por
vencido: adondequiera que uno camine,
sin importar a qu lado a o qu esquina
del espacio, nunca podr apreciar una
panormica completa de este largusimo
rectngulo. Tampoco se experimentar
el propio paralelismo de un rectngulo,
el cual se aprendi en geometra. Esto
es algo realmente diferente: no para mirarse sino para pisarse, algo que aclara
el hecho de que la concepcin intelectual
de uno se separa de la experiencia corporal real.
Cada una de las esculturas de Andre es
nica, no slo en su origen el cual generalmente est indicado por un punto
geogrfico en el ttulo y fecha de la pieza
33
sino tambin en el hecho de que difiere ligeramente su experiencia en cada

nueva instalacin. Kln Steel Lock [fig.
2] form parte de la primera exhibicin
europea denominada Arte Minimalista en Den Haag en 1968; mi imagen de
instalacin muestra una reinstalacin en
el Kunsthalle Dsseldorf en 1990, junto
con obras de Daniel Buren, Robert Morris
y otros. Difcilmente se pueden ver las
caractersticas de esta pieza en la fotografa. Es similar al Altstadt Rectangle,
en el sentido de que toma la forma de un
rectngulo (el cual nunca se puede ver
debidamente sin distorsin), pero sus
elementos individuales son mucho ms
grandes; son de 100 x 100 centmetros,
y su grosor es el doble de la pieza de
Altstadt. Cada placa est colocada justo
al lado de su vecina sobre el piso; casi
se puede sentir su peso, el cual parece
acercarse al peso mximo que un solo
ser humano puede levantar sin importar
que tan grandes sean. Por muy grandes que sean algunas de las obras de
Andre, un nico mdulo de estas obras
de mltiples partes no es nunca demasiado pesado para que una persona lo
levante y lo maneje. No obstante, uno
se puede imaginar que el manejar estas
partes debe haber sido en verdad una
operacin fsica. La escultura encontr
Fig. 3 : Wa lnu t Wat e r Scatt e r , M id d e l h e immu s e u m , A ntw e rp, 2 0 0 1 .
of Andres works are, a single module of these multi-part works is never

too heavy for one person to lift and
handle. Yet you can imagine that handling the parts indeed must have been
a physical operation. The sculpture
found its final form through the artist
working in space. Each piece is concrete in its space, and it makes the
viewer aware of this space.
Yet this awareness of space is only
possible by relating the sculpture
back to the human body, by walking
on it or walking alongside it. Kln
Steel Lock, for example, offers plates
so large that d epending on the
length and speed of your paceyour
feet will touch each plate twice while
walking. The overall impression is
more smooth, the sound totally different from a piece with smaller
elements. The grid-lines produced

by the small gaps between the unattached and unconnected hot-rolled
steel plates might shift the adjacent
or next element by a few millimeters,
which again would tune the next
element to another sound and feeling under your soles. Whereas the
piece at Konrad Fischers was very
much about a passageway for a slow
pace, a floor more or less to dwell on,
the Lock piece is much more literally,
through its weight and size, locking the floor, creating a distinctly
different area to be perceived by the
spectator. It is a concrete zone within
the exhibition space; it relates to the
surrounding space by playing with
scale, which, according to the artist,
has nothing to do with size. It is the
scale of the individual elements, their
su forma final al trabajarla el artista en

el espacio. Cada pieza queda concreta
en su espacio, y hace que el espectador
se d cuenta de este espacio.
Sin embargo, esta conciencia del espacio
es posible solamente al relacionar la escultura nuevamente con el cuerpo humano, al caminar encima o por un lado de
ella. Kln Steel Lock, por ejemplo presenta placas tan grandes que--dependiendo
de la longitud y la velocidad del paso de
uno--los pies tocarn cada placa dos veces al caminar. La impresin general es
ms tersa, el sonido totalmente diferente
del de una pieza con elementos ms pequeos. Las lneas de la cuadrcula producidas por los pequeos huecos entre
las placas que estn sueltas y las placas
de acero desconectadas podran cambiar el elemento adyacente o siguiente
por unos cuantos milmetros, lo cual, de
34
nuevo, entonara el siguiente elemento con otro sonido y sensacin bajo los
pies. Aunque la pieza de Konrad Fischer
se trataba de un pasaje a ser recorrido
a ritmo lento, un piso en que uno poda
fijarse ms o menos detenidamente, la
pieza Lock literalmente sujeta el piso, lo
mantiene en su lugar, por su peso y su
tamao, creando un rea definitivamente diferente para que la perciba el espectador. Se trata de una zona concreta
dentro del espacio de la exhibicin que
se relaciona con el espacio a su alrededor al jugar con la escala, la cual, segn
el artista, no tiene nada que ver con el
tamao. Es la escala de los elementos individuales, su configuracin especfica,
y, por ltimo, pero sin restarle importancia, nuestro propio cuerpo: Medimos la
escala de acuerdo con nuestra propia estatura. Pero el sentido de nuestra estatu-
specific configuration, andlast but

not least o ur own body: We do
measure scale according to our own
stature. But our sense of our own stature is much more plastic and sliding:
its not a fixed thing. We tend to relate
back to our own physical mass. The
configuration makes us move, and
this moving makes us conscious of
ourselves in space.
Most of Andres sculptures are walkable, but for some it doesnt make
sense to walk on them, as we would
destroy soft materials such as poplar
or Styrofoam planks. Other materials,
as in Walnut Water Scatter [fig. 3],
are not even accessibleat least not
by humans. In an outdoor exhibition
in Middelheim, Belgium, Andre created a piece of 300 walnut squares
floating freely in a duck pond. It is
one of his few scatter pieces over
the decades, which very obviously relate to the idea of entropy, the process
by which one state (that of order) can
change into another (that of disorder
or chaos) without losing energy. It is its
history which changes any work (not
only these types of obviously floating
ones) over time. In Andres words: If
you leave a steel piece out in the rain
and the wind for three hundred years,
it would probably rust away. If it did
rust away, the grass would probably
have a different pattern from where
the rust was because of the high iron
content in the soil at that place. Nothing ever truly disappears.
Nevertheless, each configuration of
elements in a sculpture by Andre is
unique and not at all subject to changes which might be imposed on it by
owners, collectors, or museums. A
piece may alter and change through
use over time; it might wear out, get
scratches, or oxidate, since none of
Andres materials surfaces are manipulated by coating or other preservative methods. But a piece may not
be altered by another person. Once
it is in the world, it has its form and
configuration as decided upon by the
artist, and it is not to be changed. I
stress this point because once in a
while, even museum curators have
rearranged elements into different
shapes that would fit their installation
purposes better, or fancy Italian collectors have decided to have the attractive materials hung, even framed,
on the wall!
It is also never about touching the
material which the artist uses. Tactile
contact with the hand would not only
damage the always-pure materials, it
would not provide us with any useful
insight about Andres notion of sculpture as place.
The theme of variation is inherent in

Andres practiceand its an important aspect. The seemingly simple
configurations defined by cardinal
numbers would theoretically allow
for other configurations as well. For
example, a rectangle of 3 by 12 elements could also be constituted as a
square of 6 by 6 elements. But that
would be a different work. By saying
that the artist does a work because
it is not there, Andre avows that he
will be the only one to decide upon
the works specific configurationit
is never about a viewers participation in the artistic process. The viewer
is asked to perceive the work; she
climbs the mountain because it is
there. The historic steel-glass architecture of the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid, a greenhouse erected in 1887,
is now regularly used as an exhibition
space. The space does not contain
any walls and the ceiling is 22 meters
high. The floor consists of white marble, whose surface is almost blinding
in the floating sunlight. In 1988 Andre
placed four sculptures made out of
identical elements of weathered coldrolled steel plates (each measures a
square meter with only a half centimeter thickness) onto the continuum
of the floor. [fig. 4] One piece, 47
Roaring Forties, is like a line, one element in width and 47 elements in
length; another, 46 Roaring Forties is
like a road, 2 by 23 elements. One is
a square of 7 by 7, and the sculpture
in the foreground is a rectangle of 5
by 9 elements. The overall impression
of the installation was of a very finetuned response to place: the rough,
rusty material counterbalancing the
smooth floor, yet modest enough to visually melt into the surface rather than
being superimposed on it. Yet the defined areas did not so much reflect as
capture our sight and pace. As material they have a life of their own,
responding to the space like a musical contrapunctus, reacting harmoniously to the space/melody given, but
also themselves creating a variation
of themes. Each work of the series
consists of a cardinal number in the
40s, referring to the winds between
40 and 50 degrees latitude, which
are colloquially called the Roaring
Forties. Further possible configurations, with the same material, were
executed by Andre following this
show. This is a common procedure
in his workto add more variations
to an already existing ensemble of
sculptures. He did this as well with the
Altstadt Rectangles (of which a whole
family of related rectangles exist),
and this is probably why there is con-
ra es mucho ms plstica y flexible: no es

una cosa fija. Tendemos a relacionar las
cosas con nuestra propia masa fsica.
La configuracin nos obliga a movernos,
y este movimiento nos da la conciencia
de nosotros mismos en el espacio.
La mayora de las esculturas de Andre
son caminables se puede caminar
sobre ellas pero para algunos no tiene
sentido pisarlas, ya que as destruiramos los materiales blandos, tales como
el lamo, o tablones de poliestireno.
Otros materiales, como los de Walnut
Water Scatter [fig. 3], ni siquiera son
accesibles, cuando menos no para el ser
humano. En una exhibicin en exteriores
en Middelheim, Blgica, Andre cre una
pieza de trescientos cuadros de nuez de
Castilla, flotando libremente en un estanque de patos. Es una de las pocas piezas
esparcidas que muy obviamente se
relacionan con la idea de entropa, el
proceso mediante el cual un estado (el de
orden) puede cambiar a otro (uno de desorden o caos) sin perder energa. Es su
propia historia la que cambia cualquier
obra (no solamente estos tipos de las que
obviamente flotan) con el transcurso del
tiempo. En las palabras de Andre: Si se
tiene una pieza de acero al intemperie
para que le caiga la lluvia y le d el viento durante trescientos aos, probablemente se oxidara hasta desaparecer. Si
se oxidara hasta desaparecer, el csped
probablemente exhibira un patrn distinto al que tena donde estaba la oxidacin, debido al alto contenido de hierro
en la tierra en ese sitio. Nunca desaparece nada del todo.
Sin embargo, cada configuracin de
elementos en una escultura de Andre es
nica, y de ninguna manera est sujeta
a cambios que podran serle impuestos
por sus propietarios, coleccionistas o
museos. Una pieza puede alterarse y
cambiar por su uso a travs del tiempo;
puede desgastarse, rallarse u oxidarse,
ya que ninguna de las superficies de los
materiales de Andre estn manipuladas
con capas o revestimientos ni ningn otro
mtodo de conser vacin. Pero una pieza no puede ser modificada por ninguna
otra persona. Una vez que est en el
mundo, tiene su forma y configuracin
tal y como las dispuso el artista, y por
ningn motivo deben cambiarse. Hago
hincapi en este punto porque de vez en
cuando, aun los curadores de museo han
re-arreglado elementos en diferentes
formas para que quedaran mejor al propsito de su instalacin, y algunos coleccionistas italianos elegantes han decidido colgar los materiales atractivos,
incluso enmarcarlos, sobre la pared!
Tampoco se debe tocar nunca el material que usa el artista. El contacto tctil
con la mano, no solamente daara los
materiales siempre puros, sino que no
35
nos ayudara a comprender lo que Andre conceba como la escultura como

lugar.
El tema de la variacin es inherente a la
prctica para Andre, y es un aspecto importante. Las configuraciones aparente
sencillas definidas por nmeros cardinales tericamente permitira tambin
otras configuraciones. Por ejemplo, un
rectngulo de 3 por 12 elementos tambin podra constituir un cuadrado de 6
por 6 elementos. Pero sa sera una obra
diferente. Cuando Andre afirma que el
artista elabora una obra porque no esa
obra no est ah, nos asegura que l
ser el nico que decida sobre la configuracin especfica de la obra, pues en
el proceso artstico nunca se trata de la
participacin del espectador. Al espectador se le pide que perciba la obra; la cual
escala la montaa porque la montaa se
encuentra ah. La arquitectura histrica
de acero y vidrio del Palacio de Cristal,
en Madrid, un invernadero construido
en 1887, se usa ahora regularmente
como un espacio de exhibicin. El espacio carece de paredes, y el techo tiene
22 metros de altura. El piso consiste en
mrmol blanco, cuya superficie en casi
enceguecedora debido al reflejo de la
luz solar flotante. En 1988 Andre coloc cuatro esculturas hechas de idnticas
placas de acero, que ya haban sufrido
los daos de la intemperie (cada una de
un metro cuadrado y solamente medio
centmetro de espesor), en el piso. [fig. 4]
Una de las piezas, 47 Roaring Forties, es
como una raya, un elemento de ancho y
47 elementos de largo; otro, 46 Roaring
Forties, es como un camino de 2 por 23
elementos. Una de ellas es cuadrada de
7 por 7, y la escultura en primer plano es
un rectngulo de 5 por 9 elementos. La
impresin general que daba la instalacin fue una respuesta muy refinada al
lugar: el spero y oxidado material se
contrabalanceaba con el piso liso, y sin
embargo era lo suficientemente modesto
para derretirse virtualmente en la superficie, en vez de quedar sobrepuesto al
mismo. Pero las reas definidas no reflejaban tanto nuestra vista y nuestro paso
como los captaban. Como materiales que
son, tienen su propia vida y responden
ante el espacio como un contrapunctus
musical, reaccionando armoniosamente
al espacio y la meloda dados, pero tambin creando ellas mismas una variacin
de temas. Cada obra de la serie consiste
en un nmero cardinal entre 40 y 50,
refirindose a los vientos entre 40 y 50
grados de latitud, a los cuales de manera coloquial se les llama Roaring Forties.
Algunas otras configuraciones, con el
mismo material, fueron ejecutadas por
Andre despus de la exhibicin. Este es
un procedimiento muy comn en su obra:
agregar ms variacin a su conjunto de
F i g . 4 : 4 5 R o a r i n g F o r t i e s , Pa l a c i o d e Cr i s ta l , M a d r i d , 19 8 8 . C o ll e c t i o n o f t h e a rt i s t.
fusion on the part of some museum

people about the variability of the
works. But in the end, each work is
singular, individual, and unalterable
in its material and configuration of
elements, as described by the artist
in a certificate that is issued once the
work is sold.
Sometimes writers have attributed
features to Andres sculptures which
pertain mainly to their objectness
and their visual appearance, not to
the perception of their appearance in
the world. This again might have partly to do with judgements based on the
aesthetics of photographic images.
In the photograph of 144 Tin Square
[fig. 5], installed in a Mies van der
Rohe villa of the 1920s, you can see
the material, hit by light from outside,
is almost reflective, like the surface of
a mirror. Thus we could see the sculpture as an optical modern surface
and could easily see stepping on the
work as a violent gesture. Briony
Fer even claimed that Andres floorplates pull the plug on sculpture in
that they drain the space and even the
content, as we might normally think of
it, out of sculpture.
But to me, Fer stating that the floorplates tend towards a demonstration
of the minimum requirement of a
piece of sculpture, still means to go
with a modernist notion of an artwork
as an object. Its like looking at an
abstract color field painting or an object placed directly on the floor, which
artists began doing around 1960.
Obviously, we cannot only look at the
aesthetic surface qualities of a piece
if we want to understand more about
Andres revolutionary reevaluation of
sculpture in the 1960s.
Since 1966, the artist has repeatedly
described his notion of sculpture as

place. He has not only referred to
the course of art history since Auguste
Rodin, but also placed within it the development and the intrinsic factors of
his own sculpture. He takes the Statue
of Liberty by Frdric Auguste Bartholdi, situated on New Yorks Bedloe
Island in the Upper New York Bay, as
a model for his theory of the development of sculptural interest. [fig. 6]
From form (the copper shell of the
statue) to structure (the iron girders
inside the monument, constructed by
Gustave Eiffel) to the sculptors interest in the very placenot necessarily
the specific onewhere a sculpture
is situated.
Transposed to the analysis of one of
his sculptures, this would mean: we
have a form, which is, in the case of
Belgica Blue Tin Raster [fig. 7], for example, the square arrangement of elements. We have a structure, which
is the regular, grid-like configuration
of Belgian Blue Limestone blocks interspersed with rectangular tin plates.
And we have the place: originally
the gallery in Brussels where it was
first exhibited, here the floor of an upper room at a modernist villa formerly
inhabited by a private collector in
Krefeld.
So place does not necessarily mean
expansion in height, but instead the
common floor which a piece shares
with us at a certain place in time.
Looking at another example, the
Steel-Magnesium Plain [fig. 8], we
can now add the fourth criterion (it
was only added later) in Andres
definition of sculpture. It is matter
which makes each piece unique and
special in its existence in the world.
This emphasis on matter also distin-
esculturas ya existente. Hizo lo mismo

con el Altstadt Rectangle (del cual existe una familia entera de rectngulos
relacionados), y sta es probablemente
la razn por la cual hay confusin por
parte de algunos muselogos sobre la
variabilidad de las obras. Pero en
ltima instancia, cada obra es singular,
individual, e inalterable en su material
y configuracin de elementos, segn ha
sido descrito por el artista en un certificado que se expide una vez que la obra
se haya vendido.
En algunas ocasiones algunos escritores
han atribuido caractersticas a las esculturas de Andre, las cuales se relacionan
principalmente con su calidad de objeto y su apariencia visual, no a la percepcin de su apariencia en el mundo.
Puede que esto tenga que ver otra vez
con juicios basados en la esttica de las
imgenes fotogrficas. En la fotografa
de 144 Tin Square Plaza [fig. 5], instalada en un chalet de Mies van der Rohe de
los aos veintes, puede verse el material,
iluminado por la luz exterior, es casi reflejante, como la superficie de un espejo. As, podramos ver la escultura como
una superficie moderna de ptica, y
podramos pensar que el pisar la obra
constituira un gesto violento. Briony
Fer ha sostenido incluso que las placas
de piso de Andre le quitan el tapn al
tanque de la escultura, en el sentido de
que drenan el espacio y hasta el contenido, como normalmente los entendemos,
que sta tiene.
Pero para m, el hecho de que Fer sostenga que las placas de piso tienden hacia
una demostracin del requisito mnimo
de una pieza de escultura, implica todava la aceptacin de la nocin modernista de la obra de arte como objeto. Es
como mirar una pintura abstracta de color o un objeto colocado directamente en
F ig. 6 : Statue of L ib ert y fr om Passport, 19 6 0 .

A d d ison G a ll ery of Am er ic a n Art.
el piso, los cuales comenzaron los artistas alrededor de 1960. Obviamente, no

podemos enfocarnos nicamente en las
cualidades estticas de la superficie de
una pieza si queremos entender mejor la
revolucionaria reevaluacin de la escultura propuesta por Andre en los 1960s.
Desde 1966, nuestro artista ha descrito
repetidamente su nocin de escultura
como espacio. No solamente se ha referido al curso de la historia del arte desde
Auguste Rodin, sino que tambin ha colocado dentro de la misma el desarrollo
y los factores intrnsecos de su propia
escultura. Andre cita a la Estatua de la
Libertad, de Frdric Auguste Bartholdi,
situada en la Isla Bedloe, en la Baha de
Nueva York, como un modelo de su teora del desarrollo de inters escultural.
[fig. 6] De la forma (el cascarn de cobre de la estatua) a la estructura (las
vigas de hierro dentro del monumento,
construido por Gustave Eiffel) al inters
del escultor en el lugar mismo no necesariamente el especfico donde se sita
una escultura.
Trasladado al anlisis de una de sus esculturas, esto significara: tenemos una
forma, que es, en el caso de Belgium
Blue Tin Raster [fig. 7], por ejemplo, el
arreglo de los elementos en forma de cuadrado. Tenemos estructura, que es la
configuracin regular, cuadriculada, de
bloques de caliza belga intercalados con
placas de estao rectangulares. Y tene-
F i g 5 : 1 4 4 T i n S q u a r e , N e w Y o rk , 197 5 . M u s e N at i o n a l d Art M o d e r n e ,
C e n tr e G e o r g e s P o mp i d o u , Pa r i s .
mos el lugar: originalmente la galera

de Bruselas donde primeramente se exhibi, aqu el piso de la sala superior en el
chalet modernista previamente habitado
por un coleccionista privado de Krefeld.
Entonces, place (lugar), no necesariamente significa expansin en altura,
sino el piso comn, el cual comparte
una pieza con nosotros en cierto lugar
en el tiempo. Pasando a otro ejemplo,
el Steel-Magnesium Plain [fig. 8], ahora
podemos agregar el cuarto criterio (se
agreg ms tarde) en la definicin de la
escultura de Andre. Es la materia lo
que hace cada pieza nica y especial en
su existencia en el mundo. Este nfasis
en la materia tambin distingue la actitud del artista hacia la especificidad
38
over time. Weathering Piece [fig. 9],

initially installed on a balcony in Antwerp and re-installed on an outside
terrace during Andres retrospective
in Krefeld in 1996, as well as Chinati
Thirteener here in Marfa, 3 are two
examples.
Andres love for matter can also be
applied toward his relationship to
language. Even before the artist was
coming to comparable formal solutions in sculpture, he was dealing
with language in his poetry. Just as
he does not employ pure mimetic
or narrative ideas in sculpture, so
too language does not serve him as
an instrument for prose. He doesnt
want to tell stories, but intends to give
words back their own autonomy and
beauty of individual meaningas he
does with pure metals, or with ephemeral material like found elements, or,
more rarely, natural materials such as
hay bales. Andre often takes words
from non-literary sources: for ex-
de un lugar. Sus esculturas no dependen

tanto de su colocacin en un entorno especfico que pudiera dictar o construir un
significado. Su procedimiento es el contrario: al colocar materia en un lugar, el
artista le da significado al lugar, y a la
materia presentada en su configuracin
especfica.
Un buen ejemplo de cmo la forma y la
estructura son determinadas por la materia de la cual estn hechas es Cooper
Glarus Galaxy. La obra consiste en una
tira de cobre enrollado en espiral, colocada en el piso de manera de que se
desenrolla a s misma solamente al grado en que la tensin de la lmina de cobre lo permita. Claro est que al mismo
tiempo que uno diga desenrllate, se
trata tambin de desenrollar o desenredar su misterio: es algo misterioso,
tiene el potencial de ser indefinido, y sin
embargo es materialmente restringido y definido. El ttulo se refiere a este
milagro, y tambin hace referencia a la
el cual predominaba en todas sus exhibiciones en el Swiss Glarus 2, ya que el

galerista de all haba encontrado una
fuente de productores de cobre, los cuales se atenan a las ms altas y puras
normas de fabricacin.
La configuracin de las piezas de Andre
con frecuencia resulta de las circunstancias del lugar y el material que tena a
la mano. Una exhibicin en Londres se
dedic totalmente a varillas de acero
encontradas, las cuales con el tiempo
haban quedado dobladas y cur vas. El
artista coloc los elementos de punta a
punta; la forma final y la estructura le
sali naturalmente. En una ocasin dijo
que quera que le llamaran El Turner de
la materia, queriendo decir que, de la
misma manera como el conocido pintor
del siglo XIX haba liberado al color de
su funcin representacional, l haba
liberado a la materia de sus funciones
mimticas.
Para continuar con lo mencionado anteriormente sobre entropa, la materia,
Fig. 9: We at h er in g P iec e, A n twe rpen , 1970. Kr ll er -M ll e r Mu se u m,

Otte rlo , T he N et h erl a n ds.
preocupacin del artista por el cobre,
Fig. 8: Stee l- Ma gn esiu m Pl a in, N ew Yo rk, 1969.

P rivat e Co ll ec t ion , Switze rl a nd .
guishes the artists attitude toward the

specificity of a place. His sculptures
are less about a placing in specific
surroundings, which might dictate or
construct the meaning. His procedure
is the other way round: by placing
matter in a place, he ascribes meaning to the place and to the submitted
matter in its specific configuration.
A good example of how form and
structure are determined by the matter of which they are made is Copper
Glarus Galaxy. The work consists of
a strip of coiled copper, placed on
the floor so that it unravels itself only
to the degree which the tension of
the copper sheet allows. Of course,
at the same time that one says unravel, it is also about unraveling its
mysteryit is mysterious, it has the
potential of being indefinite, and yet
it is clearly materially restricted and
defined. The title refers to this miracle a nd also references the artists
preoccupation with copper, which
was predominant in all his shows
in the Swiss Glarus, 2 as the gallerist
there had found a source of copper
producers, which made for the highest
and purest standards of fabrication.
The configuration of Andres pieces
often results from the circumstances of
the place and the material at hand.
One show in London was entirely devoted to found steel reinforcing rods,
which over time had come to acquire
bends and distortions. The artist
placed the elements end to end; the
final form and structure came along
with it naturally. He once said that he
wants to be called the Turner of matter, meaning that in the same way
that the famous nineteenth century
painter freed color from its depictive
spectrum, he has freed matter from its
mimetic functions.
To follow up the earlier mention of
entropy, matter, of course, can also
change itself over time. Some pieces
are especially meant to be exposed
to the weather and to visibly change
F ig. 7 : B elgica B lue T in Rast er , Br ussel s, 19 9 0 . P r ivat e C oll ec t ion , S a n F r a n c isc o.
39

males comparables en escultura, estaba
tratando con el lenguaje en su poesa.
As como no emplea mimtica pura ni
ideas narrativas en escultura, tampoco le sir ve el lenguaje como instrumento
para hacer prosa. l no quiere contar
historias, pero intenta devolverles a las
palabras su propia autonoma y belleza
de significado individual as como lo
F ig. 1 0 : T h e Lif e P r oc ess of S oc iet y , 19 7 6 7 7 .
hace con metales puros o con material
per and zinc are arranged in a row

to form an oblong surface. The two
metals alternate, so that one end of
the sculpture is copper, the other
zinc. Transversely placed, the units
give the impression of a surface rigorously divided into lines. The works
in Andres Sonnets group are tone
poems in the original sense. They
share with the eponymous poetic
form their number of lines and their
antithetical structures.
Another parallel line of works, which
have not officially entered the registry
of Andres sculptures, are the Dada
claro est, puede cambiarse con el paso

del tiempo. Algunas piezas estn destinadas especialmente a estar expuestas
a la intemperie y a cambiar visiblemente
con el tiempo. Weathering Piece [fig. 9],
instalado inicialmente en un balcn de
Antwerp y reinstalada en una terraza
al aire libre durante la retrospectiva de
Andre en Krefeld en 1996, y tambin en
Chinati Thirteener, aqu en Marfa, 3 son
dos ejemplos.
El amor de Andre por la materia tambin se puede aplicar a su relacin con
el idioma. Aun antes de que el artista
comenzara a encontrar soluciones for-
efmero como los elementos encontrados o, con menos frecuencia, materiales

naturales tales como las pacas de heno.
Con frecuencia Andre toma palabras de
fuentes no literarias: por ejemplo, de un
libro de historia de E. W. Peirce sobre la
figura histrica del Rey Felipe. De una
manera similar a la que usa para tratar
con la escultura, Andre toma el lenguaje
como una cantera con el fin de usar
sus elementos, las palabras, de una manera diferente de una oracin sintctica
estructurada de acuerdo a la gramtica.
El significado mismo de las palabras se
nivela, y cada una es igual a la otra, logrando y revelando su belleza, as como
su lado peligroso y oscuro. Por lo que
se refiere a su uso intenso del libro de
Peirce, Andre declara: la historia me
ha dado un tema, la historia no me ha
dado un mtodo no quiero escribir
un poema narrativo ni una historia. Lo
que yo quera era el aislamiento de los
trminos de la guerra del Rey Felipe y
luego una operacin adecuada para recombinar los trminos de tal manera que
se produjera un poema me doy cuenta
que la nica disociacin suficientemente completa para mis propsitos fue la
reduccin del texto de Peirce, en sus elementos constituyentes ms pequeos: el
aislamiento de cada palabra.
En otros casos, el artista trata en sus
piezas de WORDS, con formas similares, exactamente como en sus configuraciones de piso. Sin embargo, no son
tan poco jerrquicos como los pisos de
metal. Algunos s comienzan desde varios lados: otros siguen el flujo de la lectura de izquierda a derecha y de arriba
abajo; sin embargo, las palabras estn
Fig. 11: C opp e r-Z in c Son n et , D sse ld orf, 19 91. C o ll ec tio n of th e artis t.
ample, from a history book by E. W.

Peirce on the historic figure of King
Philip. Similar to the way he deals
with sculpture, he takes language as
a quarry in order to use its single elements, the words, in a manner that is
different from a syntactical sentence
structured according to grammar.
The very meaning of the words is leveled, so that each is equal to another,
achieving and revealing their beauty
as well as their dangerous and dark
sides. In regard to his intensive use
of Peirces book, Andre states: History has given me a subject, history
has not given me a method. I did
not want to write a narrative poem
or a history. What I wanted was the
isolation of the terms of King Philips
war and then a suitable operation for
recombining the terms in such a ways
as to produce a poem I realized
that the only disassociation complete
enough for my purposes was the reduction of Peirces text into its smallest
constituent elements: the isolation of
each word.
In other cases the artist deals, in his
W OR D S pieces, with similar shapes,
just as in his planar floor configurations. Yet they are not as unhierarchical as the metal floors. Some do
start from various sides; others follow
ones reading-flow from left to right
and top to bottom, yet the words
are equalized by an even spacing
of their letters without any indication of where a word starts or stops.
This word piece (rather than poem)
reads as follows: The life process of
society which is based on the process
of material production does not strip
off its mystical veil until it is treated as
production by freely associated men
and women and is consciously regulated by the min accordance with a
settled plank Marx Capital. [fig. 10]
This quotation from Marxs Capital
not only indicates Andres interest
in Marxist philosophy: he regards
the value which resides inherently in
the sculptures material as the immanence of his sculptureand regards
this to be the essence of materialist
philosophy. Consequently, he asserts
that his work is atheistic, materialistic and communist because in his
eyes it is accessible to all humans.
He wants matter as matter rather than
matter as symbol.
Similarly, structures deriving from poetry, which occupied the artist much
earlier in his life than sculpture, have
entered the sculptural work. Comparable to structures from music, like
the aforementioned contrapunctus,
in this Copper-Zinc Sonnet [fig. 11]
fourteen rectangular plates of cop-
40
igualadas por un espacio nivelado de sus

letras sin ninguna indicacin de dnde
comienza o termina una palabra. Esta
pieza de palabra (mejor que poema)
se lee como sigue: el proceso de vida
de la sociedad, el cual est basado en
el proceso de produccin de materiales,
no se quita su velo mstico hasta que sea
tratado como produccin por hombres y
mujeres libremente asociados y sea regulado conscientemente por ellos segn
un plan fijo. [fig. 10]
Esta cita de El Capital de Marx no slo
indica el inters de Andre en la filosofa marxista: l considera el valor que
reside inherentemente en el material
de la escultura como la inmanencia de
Forgeries, for example The Sign of

Immortality.4 These humorous assemblages of found objects exist parallel to the oeuvre. They are heavily
language-based, and it will probably
be a task for a native speaker to decipher the wit and the wordplay, which
are very typical of Andre.
The object seems to play on the riddle
of a cigarette holder, a device so
typical of the 1920s. Additionally,
the notion of to forge, in its double
meaning of welding and faking,
is ironically mocking the art-historical
developments of the readymade and
Dadaist works from the 1920s. Andre
has critiqued Duchamps readymade
on several occasions: The fault of the
Duchamp readymade is that it idealizes an industrial product by severing
it from its origins in working class
craft and claiming it as a trophy of
capitalist cunning. The readymade is
industrial product as pure exchange
value. The Dada of Duchamp is
nothing but the substitution of exchange value for production value in
art.
On the eve of Nixons reelection in
1973, Andre announced an exhibition with the title American Decay
[fig. 12], presenting an ephemeral
piece consisting of tons of cottage
cheese and gallons of Ketchup, which
in a humorous yet political way points
to the modest eating habits which
were part of the lore of the newly reelected president.
Years before, in the beginning of the
development of Andres sculptural
oeuvre in the early 1960s, Andre produced a material assemblage out of
concrete, in which he stuck discarded
household and studio matter such
as broken glass and broken porcelain. Both samples may well serve to
illustrate the utmost extremes to which
the idea of sculpture as form as structure as place as matter can be taken.
Fig. 12: Decay (Nixons Second Inauguration), Washington, D.C., 19 73.
jndolo de sus orgenes en las artesanas

de la clase trabajadora y reclamndolo
como si se tratara de un trofeo del ingenio capitalista. Lo readymade es un
producto industrial como valor de intercambio puro el Dad de Duchamp no
es otra cosa que la sustitucin del valor
del intercambio por el valor de produccin en el arte.
Poco antes de la reeleccin de Nixon en
1973, Andre anunci una exhibicin con
el ttulo de American Decay [fig. 12], presentando una pieza efmera consistente
en toneladas de requesn y galones de
ketchup, lo cual, de una manera humorstica pero a la vez poltica, alude a los
lying out, they were just stored there

until they were used, until they were
bent or formed into whatever shape
for the hull and deck plates.
Quincy was also known for its stone
quarries, the last of which closed in
1963. Here as well the artist guided
me around, in order to introduce me
to his early childhood memories. He
has always stressed how important
these early experiences in the landscape, with its seashore and its shipbuilding and granite business, had
been to him. When reflecting about
it in 2000, he downplayed the movements of the 1960s as influences for
his art. It wasnt anything about the
1960s: it was about the 1930s, the
1940s, and the 1950s. We are the
sum of our pasts, not the sum of our
presents. And all of us were raised
before television, before organized
games for children. we were feral
children; we ran everywhere over
our neighborhood and in the swamps
and so-called islands and mounds
that were around it.
Andres family is of Swedish decent
Anderson t hats why there is no
French acute accent over the final
e. His grandfather came to the
United States around 1910; he was
a bricklayer and ran a construction
company. Two of the grandfathers
brothers-in-law had come to America
earlier; they were blacksmiths. Andre
recalls his earliest memories from visiting various construction sites with
an uncle, who was also part of the
grandfathers construction company.
The first five years of life brings the
greatest evolution of the artist and
each succeeding year brings less and
less change. His fathers profession
was as a draftsman at the shipyard
in Quincy. Additionally, through both
his father and his mother, Andre took
a vivid interest in language, especially in poetry.
Parallel to an exhibition which Andre
had in 1973 in Andover (where he
su escultura, y considera que esto es la

esencia de la filosofa materialista.
Consecuentemente, Andre afirma que su
obra es atea, materialista y comunista
porque en sus ojos es accesible a todos
los humanos. l desea la materia como
materia, y no como smbolo.
De manera similar, las estructuras derivadas de la poesa, las cuales ocuparon
al artista en su vida mucho antes que la
escultura, se han metido en su obra escultural. Comparables con las estructuras de la msica, como el contrapunctus
antes mencionado, en este Copper-Zinc
Sonnet [fig. 11], catorce placas rectangulares de cobre y cinc estn acomodadas
en una fila para formar una superficie
oblonga. Los dos metales alternan de
manera que una de las orillas de la escultura es de cobre y la otra es de cinc.
Colocadas de forma trasversal, las unidades dan la impresin de una superficie rigurosamente dividida en lneas. Las
obras del grupo de Sonnets de Andre son
poemas de tono en el sentido original.
Comparten con la forma potica epnima su nmero de versos y sus estructuras
antitticas.
Otro conjunto paralelo de obras de
Andre, que no han entrado oficialmente al registro de sus esculturas, son las
Dada Forgeries, por ejemplo The Sign
of Immortality 4 (1963). Estos conjuntos
humorsticos de objetos encontrados
existen paralelos a la obra. Estn ba-
Andre was born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1935. Besides being

known as the birthplace of two presidents in the late eighteenth/early
nineteenth century (John Adams and
his son John Quincy Adams), the
city is also famous for having been
home to one of the largest shipyards
in America. Illustrated here is an image of the shipyard, which I visited
together with the artist in the early
1990s. Andre describes the impression vividly in an interview of 1972:
But around where the ships were
constructed there were just acres and
acres of these steel plates that were
idealiza un producto industrial, desga-
sados primordialmente en el lenguaje,

y probablemente ser una tarea para un
nativo del idioma el descifrar el arte y el
juego de palabras, los cuales son muy
tpicos de Andre.
El objeto parece jugar con la adivinanza
de un portacigarros, un accesorio muy
tpico de los 1920s. Adems, la nocin
de to forge, en su doble significado
en ingls de forjar y falsificar, es
una burla irnica de los desarrollos de
la historia del arte de lo readymade y
las obras dadastas de los anos veintes.
Andre ha criticado lo readymade de
Duchamp en varias ocasiones: El error
de lo readymade de Duchamp es que
41
hbitos culinarios modestos que eran

parte de la fama del presidente.
Aos antes, al comenzar Andre a desarrollar su obra escultural a principios de
los sesentas, el artista produjo un artefacto de concreto en el cual meti enseres caseros descartados y materia
de estudio tales como vidrio quebrado
y porcelana rota. Ambos ejemplos bien
pueden ser vir para ilustrar los extremos
a los cuales puede llegar la idea de escultura como forma como escultura como
lugar como materia.
Andre naci en Quincy, Massachusetts

en 1936. Adems de ser conocido este
lugar como la cuna del nacimiento de
dos presidentes a finales del siglo XVIII y
principios del XIX (John Adams y su hijo
John Quincy Adams), la ciudad es tambin famosa por haber sido la sede de
uno de los astilleros ms grandes de los
Estados Unidos. Aqu aparece una imagen del astillero, el cual visit junto con el
artista a principios de los noventas. Andre describe la impresin con viveza en
una entrevista en 1972: Pero por dnde
se construyeron los barcos solamente
haba acres y acres de estas placas de
acero que se encontraban tiradas. Se
almacenaban ah hasta que se les daba
uso, hasta que se doblaban o formaran
cualquier figura para el casco y las placas de la cubierta del barco.
Quincy tambin era conocido por sus
canteras de piedra, la ltima de las cuales cerr en 1963. Aqu tambin el artista
me gui por los alrededores, con el fin
de revivir los recuerdos su primera infancia. l siempre ha hecho hincapi en
la importancia que tenan para l estas
tempranas experiencias en el paisaje,
con su ambiente marino y la construccin de barcos y negocios de granito. Al
reflexionar sobre ello, en el ao 2000, le
rest importancia a los movimientos de
los 1960s como influencia en su arte. No
tena nada que ver con los 1960s: se trataba de los 1930s, los 1940s, y los 1950s.
in which it was not immediately possible to tell the scale. In a way the
Russian abstract period was like a
distant thunder. Brancusi had a much
more immediate influence because it
was possible to go to Philadelphia
and see the Arensberg collection; this
was a direct and immediate influence
because I started making sculpture
carving in wood inspired by Brancusis wood carvings.
At the end of the 1950s, Andre shared
a studio with Frank Stella in New
York. The famous Last Ladder [fig. 13]
originated here; it shows the repetitive
motif that easily could be connected
to the vertically evolving and identical
forms in Brancusis Endless Column.
Andre referred to his Ladder pieces
as negative Brancusi-like structures.
During these years, Andre worked on
several small scale, so-called Exercises such as the little wooden, sawcarved sculpture, which indicates the
artists interest in questions of the gestalt and how it is not only formed by
its own body, but also determined by
the surrounding space, which can be
seen as cutting into the matter, as in
the visual phenomenon of positive
and negative forms.
Somos la suma de nuestras partes, no la

suma de nuestro presente. Y a todos nosotros nos criaron antes de la televisin,
antes de los juegos organizados para los
nios ramos nios silvestres; corramos por doquier en nuestro vecindario
y en los pantanos y las llamadas islas y
montculos que lo rodeaban.
La familia de Andre es de ascendencia
sueca Anderson y es por eso que
no lleva acento agudo en francs sobre
la e final. Su abuelo vino a los Estados
Unidos alrededor de 1910; l era albail
y estaba encargado de una compaa
constructora. Dos de los cuados del
abuelo haban venido a este continente
anteriormente; eran herreros. Los primeros recuerdos de Andre eran de visitas a
varias obras de construccin con su to,
quien era tambin parte de la compaa
constructora de su abuelo. Los primeros
cinco aos de vida traen la mayor evolucin del artista y cada ao sucesivo trae
menos y menos cambio. La profesin de
su padre era la de dibujante del astillero
en Quincy. Adems, tanto por el lado de
su padre como por el de su madre, Andre
desarroll un vvido inters en la lengua,
especialmente en la poesa.
Paralelamente a una exhibicin que
asisti a la Academia Phillips de 1951 a

1953 y estudi con Maud y Patrick Morgan), l public un libro de artista con
fotografas de su ciudad natal, Quincy.
Andre se estableci en Nueva York en
1957 con su amigo Hollis Frampton, su
compaero de cuarto de Andover. En
Nueva York, conoci a Frank Stella. A
travs de Frampton conoci la obra de
Ezra Pound, quien tuvo una gran influencia en l, sobre todo en los escritos de
Pound sobre el artista rumano Constantin Brancusi. Andre se sinti especialmente atrado al mtodo de Brancusi de
cincelar directamente en el material, as
como en la reevaluacin de la base de
la escultura como una parte integral de
la misma, en particular Endless Column.
La obra temprana de Andre y sus primeras influencias se relacionan tambin
con frecuencia con las obras Constructivistas, las cuales son estructuralmente
comparables, pero Brancusi era para
l la ms inmediata influencia. Yo me
siento mucho ms apegado a Brancusi
que a los rusos porque en mi aos formativos en los 1950s, hubo muy pocas
obras Constructivistas rusas en Occidente, y yo no creo que haya habido ninguna escultura. Lo que uno s vea era una
especie de fotografas oscuras de obras
Fig. 14: PP yra m id ( Squa r e Pl a n) , Ne w York 1959 (d e stro yed ) /Orle a ns, M A 1970 (r em a de ). D all as M use um of Art.
Andre tuvo en 1973 en Andover (donde
Fig. 13: La st Ladd er , Ne w Yo rk, 1959. Tate Ga lle ry, Lo n do n.
attended the Phillips Academy from

195153 and studied with Maud and
Patrick Morgan), he published an artists book with photographs of his
hometown, Quincy.
Andre settled in New York in 1957
with his friend Hollis Frampton, a
roommate from Andover. In New York
he met Frank Stella. Through Frampton he was introduced to the work of
Ezra Pound, which had a profound influence, especially Pounds writing on
the Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi. Andre was especially drawn to
Brancusis method of directly carving
into the material, as well as the reevaluation of the base of the sculpture
as an integral part of it, in particular
Endless Column.
Andres early work and influences are
also often related back to Constructivist works, which are structurally comparable, yet Brancusi was for him
the more immediate influence: I feel
much closer to Brancusi than to the
Russians because in my immediate
formative years in the 1950s, there
was very little Russian Constructivist
work in the West, and I dont think
any sculpture. What one did see was
sort of obscure photographs of works
42
At the end of 1960s, Andre began to

use materials with less manipulated
elements. Nevertheless, works like his
series of stacked timber, the so-called
Pyramids [fig. 14], are specially prepared, as in a log-cabin building
style, with joints and notches where
the timbers stack crosswise. Andre
found his materials mostly through
what he called scavenging, meaning going around after work hours at
construction sites and collecting construction timbers and similar materials. Once when Stella pointed out to
his friend that the uncarved backside
of the Last Ladder was sculpture too,
Andre turned the remark into a more
radical insight, realizing that the
wood was better before I cut than after. It did not improve it in any way.
And, subsequently: Up to a certain
time I was cutting into things. Then I
realized that the thing I was cutting
was the cut. Rather than cut into the
material, I now use the material as the
cut in space.
As early as 1960 Andre had conceived of a series of simple building
forms of stacked timbers with posts,
lintels, thresholds, etc. But it wasnt
until the early 1970s that he actually
executed these wood pieces.
An installation photograph from his
1996 retrospective presents one
sculpture from the Element series and
another piece from a related group
which draws on the building principles of Neolithic or ancient Greek
and Egyptian architecture. The latter group consists of structures made
of beams with a proportion of 1:5,
which makes them less stable than
the 1:3 proportion of the Element series, which might be the reason why
the group with the elongated beams
is relatively small in Andres oeuvre.
Before he executed the wood versions, Andre made little trial pieces,
which are lost today. But Hollis Frampton documented them in photographs,
showing exactly the configurations of
the Element series, made out of little
steel blocks, which Andre might have
found while working at the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1960 and
1964. It is not so much the direct influence of the wood and steel from
which train tracks are built, nor the
impression of the long systems of interurban tracks with their converging
lines of metal rails; it seems primarily
to have been the experience the artist
had with matter and physicality
during these years which influenced
his work. As a freight brakeman he
was maneuvering the masses of the
huge train cars. This inaugurated his
practice as sculptor to never use more
weight, or weights bigger than, an element that he himself can handle. It

was during this time at the railroad
that the artist, in his own words, got
his advanced degree in sculpture.
Much later in his oeuvre, Andre used
a material he was very close to while
growing up: Quincy granite. He even
named the works after geographical
sites in his former hometown: Houghs
Neck is a peninsula in the Quincy
Bay, and Adams Shore is the name
of one of its shores. An installation
shot of the Wolfsburg retrospective in
1996 shows in the background two
Quincy granite works from 1992,
along with his early wood piece Last
Ladder of 1959. The combination of
very early and later pieces describes
not only the connection to early childhood imprints, but also indicates Andres relationship with Brancusi and
how he referred to it with his own
work: All I am doing is putting Brancusis Endless Column on the ground
instead of in the sky. Most sculpture is
priapic with the male organ in the air.
In my work, Priapus is on the floor.
The engaged position is to run along
the earth.
The earliest laying down of a potentially endless (yet through its cardinal
and prime number 137, distinctly defined) column is Lever [fig. 15]. This
sculpture made of sand-lime bricks
was part of Primary Structures, the
1966 exhibition of younger American
and British sculptors, organized by
Kynaston McShine at the Jewish Museum in New York. Andres desire to
cut with the material into space becomes palpable in this contribution. It
is a manifestation of a sculpture that
is less a monolith or a building than a
causeway and road which offers an
infinite point of view. It is something
to move along so as to understand its
dimension and its relation to space.
It was Andres first work fully capturing the horizontality of the floor. His
characteristic flat metal floor pieces
only appeared a year later at the
Dwan Gallery in New York and subsequently at Konrad Fischer in Dsseldorf. Sculptures such as 35 Timber
Line, which is part of the exhibition
here in Marfa, relate back to this
brick sculpture. The line is, along with
the square, one of the favorite configurations in Andres sculptural oeuvre. Nevertheless, the configuration
itself does not say anything relevant
regarding chronology t hese configurations appear throughout the
decades, again and again. Andres
work is less about a subsequent development of a vocabulary of forms;
their specific configurations are more
en la cuales no era posible entender inmediatamente la escala. En cierta forma

el periodo abstracto ruso fue como un
trueno lejano. Brancusi tuvo una influencia mucho ms inmediata porque le fue
posible ir a Filadelfia y ver la coleccin
Arensberg; sta fue una influencia directa e inmediata porque yo comenc a tallar esculturas en madera inspirado por
las de madera de Brancusi.
A finales de los 1950s Andre comparti
un estudio con Frank Stella. El famoso
Last Ladder [fig. 13] origin aqu; muestra el motivo repetitivo que fcilmente
podra conectarse a las formas idnticas y verticalmente evolucionantes de
Brancusi en Endless Column. Andre se
refera a sus piezas de Ladder como estructuras a la manera de Brancusi, pero
en negativo.
Durante estos aos, Andre trabaj en
varias obras en pequea escala, supuestamente llamadas Exercises tal como la
pequea escultura hecha de madera tallada con serrucho la cual indica el inters del artista en cuestiones del gestalt y
cmo no solamente est formada por su
propio cuerpo sino tambin determinada por el espacio a su alrededor, el cual
puede verse como cortante a travs de
la materia, como en el fenmeno visual
de formas positivas y negativas.
A fines de los 1960s, Andre comenz a
usar materiales con menos elementos
manipulados. Sin embargo, obras como
sus series de madera apilada, las llamadas Pyramids [fig. 14] estn preparadas
en forma especial, al estilo de la construccin de una cabaa de troncos, con
juntas o uniones y muescas donde los
leos se apilan al cruzarse. Andre encontr sus materiales ms bien a travs
de lo que l llamaba hurgando, o sea,
andando por diversos lugares despus
de las horas de trabajo en obras de construccin y juntando maderos de construccin y materiales similares. Una vez,
cuando Stella le seal a su amigo que
la parte del revs del Last Ladder que se
encontraba sin labrar, tambin era una
escultura, Andre volvi esa obser vacin
en una retrospectiva ms radical, dndose cuenta de que la madera era mejor
antes de que yo la cortara que despus.
No la mejor de ninguna forma. Y subsecuentemente: Hasta ciertas fechas yo
cortaba las cosas. Luego me di cuenta de
que la cosa que yo cortaba era el corte.
En vez de cortar el material, ahora utilizo
el material como el corte en el espacio.
Desde los primeros aos de la dcada de
los 60s, Andre haba concebido una serie
de formas simples de construccin consistentes en maderos apilados con postes, dinteles umbrales, etc. Pero no fue
hasta principios de los 1970s que efectivamente realiz estas piezas de madera.
Una fotografa de una instalacin de su
43
retrospectiva de 1960 presenta una escultura de las series de Element, y otra

pieza de un grupo relacionado el cual se
deriva de los principios de construccin
de la arquitectura neoltica o de la de la
Grecia y el Egipto antiguos. Este ltimo
grupo consiste en estructuras hechas de
vigas con una proporcin de 1:5, lo cual
las hace menos estables que la proporcin de 1:3 de la serie de Element, que
puede ser la razn que el grupo con las
vigas alargadas sea relativamente pequeo en la obra de Andre.
Antes de ejecutar las versiones en madera, Andre hizo pequeas piezas de prueba, que hoy se han perdido. Pero Hollis
Frampton las document en fotografas,
mostrando exactamente la configuracin de la serie de Element, hechas de
pequeos bloques de acero, los cuales
Andre habra podido encontrar mientras trabajaba en el ferrocarril de Pensilvania entre 1960 y 1964. No es tanto
la influencia directa de la madera y el
acero del cual se construyen los rieles del
tren, ni la impresin de los largos sistemas de rieles interurbanos con sus lneas
convergentes de vas metlicas; parece
primordialmente haber sido la experiencia que el artista tuvo con la materia y
la fisicalidad durante estos aos que
influenciaron su obra. Trabajando como
garrotero, Andre maniobraba las pesadas cargas de los enormes vagones del
tren. Esto inici su prctica como escultor
de no usar nunca ms peso, o un peso
ms grande, que un elemento que l
mismo podra manejar. Fue durante este
tiempo en el ferrocarril que el artista en
sus propias palabras, adquiri su ttulo
de posgrado en escultura.
Mucho ms tarde, Andre us un material
que conoca por haber estado muy cerca
de l durante sus aos de niez: el granito Quincy. Hasta les dio a sus obras el
nombre por sitios geogrficos en su anterior tierra natal. Houghs Neck es una
pennsula en la baha Quincy, y Adams
Share es el nombre de una de sus playas.
Una foto instantnea de la retrospectiva
de Wolfsburg en 1996 muestra en el fondo dos obras hechas en granito Quincy
de 1992, junto con su pieza anterior hecha en madera denominada Last Ladder,
de 1959. La combinacin de piezas tempranas y otras tardas describe no slo
la conexin con huellas de su primera
niez, sino que tambin indica la relacin de Andre con Brancusi y cmo se
refera a l con su propia obra: Lo nico
que estoy haciendo es poner la Endless
Column de Brancusi en el suelo en vez de
en el cielo. La mayora de la escultura es
pripica, con el rgano masculino en el
aire. En mi obra Priapus est en el suelo.
La postura adoptada es la de correr a lo
largo de la Tierra.
La primera ejecucin de una columna

como 35 Timber Line, que es parte de
la exhibicin aqu en Marfa, tienen sus
antecedentes en su escultura en ladrillo.
La lnea es, junto con el cuadrado, una
de las configuraciones predilectas en la
obra escultural de Andre. No obstante,
la configuracin misma no dice nada relevante respecto a la cronologa estas
configuraciones aparecen a travs de
las dcadas, una y otra vez. La obra de
Andre trata menos sobre un desarrollo
posterior de un vocabulario de formas;
sus configuraciones especficas son ms
bien un medio con el cual trabajar. Andre
usa configuraciones como una especie de gramtica con el propsito de
colocar elementos, como palabras y
slabas, en el espacio.
David Bourdon recuerda lo fastidiados
que estaban unos visitantes al ver Lever
por primera vez: Como material de
escultura, los ladrillos quemados parecan extraordinariamente humildes, y
el artista obviamente no haba aplicado
F ig . 15 : L e v e r , N e w Y o rk , 19 6 6 . T h e N at io n a l G a lle ry o f C a na d a , Ottawa .
ninguna artesana visible en alinearlos formando una fila. La forma lineal

careca totalmente de inventiva y dinamismo La pieza de Andre involucraba
relativamente poca masa y ocupaba una
cantidad modesta de espacio; sin embargo, resultaba sorprendentemente asertiva Los ladrillos daban la impresin a
algunos espectadores de ser un ejemplo
tardo del arte Dad, recordando la designacin de ciertos objetos encontrados de Marcel Duchamp, tales como un
orinal o mingitorio, o una pala, como
obras de arte. La mayor diferencia es
que Duchamp escogi y puso dentro de
un contexto artstico individual objetos
manufacturados, las formas de los cuales haban sido determinadas por su uso.
En contraste, las unidades de Andre son
a means to work with. Andre uses

configuration as his kind of grammar in order to place elements, like
words and syllables, in space.
David Bourdon recalled the irritation
of visitors upon seeing Lever for the
first time: As sculptural material,
the firebricks seemed uncommonly
humble, and the artist had obviously
applied no visible craftsmanship in
aligning them in a row. The linear
form appeared singularly uninventive and undynamic Andres piece
involved relatively little mass and consumed a modest amount of space, yet
proved disconcertingly assertive.
The bricks struck some spectators as
a belated example of Dada, reminiscent of Marcel Duchamps designation of certain found objects, such
as a urinal or shovel, to be works of
art. The major difference is that Duchamp chose and put into an art context
individual manufactured objects, the
shapes of which had been determined
by their use. By contrast, Andres units

are the basic materials of construction
and manufacturing. Other [visitors]
were annoyed, surprisingly, because
the work appeared unsalable; they
theorized that since anybody could
purchase similar bricks and assemble
an identical work, nobody would
buy the original. Happily, Lever not
only polarized its audience, but also
prompted many people to reexamine
their assumptions about sculpture.5
In the same year as the Jewish Museum exhibition, Andre had a solo
show at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery
which has long since become notorious in art history, along with another
often repeated realization that would
become an often repeated anecdote.
When canoeing on a New Hampshire lake in 1965, the artist realized
that he wanted sculpture to be as
level as water. The result was not
only Lever but also a set of eight sculptures, called Equivalents IVIII. Each
potencialmente sin fin (aunque definido

por su nmero cardinal y primo 137 distintivamente definido) columna, es Lever
[fig. 15]. Esta escultura hecha de ladrillos
de arcilla arenosa formaba parte de Primar y Structures, la exhibicin de escultores americanos y britnicos jvenes,
organizada por Kynaston McShine en el
Museo Judo de Nueva York. El deseo de
Andre de hacer un corte en el espacio
con el material se vuelve palpable en esta
contribucin. Es una manifestacin de
una escultura que es menos un monolito
o edificio que una calzada y un camino
que ofrece un punto de vista infinito. Hay
que desplazarse a lo largo de la obra
para comprender sus dimensiones y su
relacin con el espacio. Fue la primera
obra de Andre que captur plenamente
la horizontalidad del suelo. Sus caractersticas piezas planas de metal para
piso aparecieron un solamente un ao
ms tarde en la Galera Dwan de Nueva
York y subsecuentemente en Konrad Fischer en Dsseldorf. Las esculturas tales
44
los materiales bsicos de construccin

y manufactura Otros [visitantes] se
sintieron molestos, sorprendentemente,
debido a que la obra pareca invendible;
supusieron que ya que cualquiera podra
haber comprado ladrillos similares para
hacer un trabajo idntico, nadie comprara el original. Felizmente, Lever no slo
polariz a su pblico, sino que tambin
provoc que mucha gente reexaminara
sus ideas sobre la escultura 5.
El mismo ao de la exhibicin en el Museo Judo, Andre tuvo una exhibicin
solo en la Galera Tibor de Nagy, la cual
se ha hecho clebre en la historia del
arte, junto con un descubrimiento repetido con frecuencia, el cual se convertira a su vez en una ancdota repetida
con frecuencia. Durante una salida en
canoa en un lago de Nueva Hampshire
en 1965, el artista se dio cuenta de que
quera que la escultura estuviera tan
plana como el agua. El resultado fue no
slo Lever, sino tambin un conjunto de
8 esculturas, llamadas Equivalents I-VIII.
floor piece consists of 120 bricks,

stacked in two identical layers. But
each rectangular shape differed by
the variation of the relation between
the number and direction of stretchers and headers, which was unique
to each sculpture. Subsequently, the
eight sculptures had a turbulent history: they were sold separately, and
because of their very delicate material some were destroyed and remade.
One even caused uproar in 1976
when the Tate Gallery in London
acquired it. In the 1970s it was still
difficult to communicate the so-called
common sense that bricks could be
art. The 1995 Sand-lime Instar is a
piece which consists of the entirety of
all 8 configurations from the Equivalent series. This new piece will stay
complete and not be split up in single
pieces, a procedure which Andre has
used frequently with other groups of
works in the past.
Similarly, and as early as in 1969,
Andre had created a 37 th Piece of
Work for his upcoming exhibition at
the Guggenheim Museum in 1970.
The units of each of 36 Plains were
made and gathered, as doubles, into
one larger composite piece that was
installed on the floor of the atrium in
Frank Lloyd Wrights building.
Speaking of large-scale installations, I

would like to point to some of the ways
that Andres work is different from the
work of other artists who have been
branded with the term Minimalism.
Robert Morris, who had turned away
from painting in 1961, had a seminal installation of grey painted box
sculptures at the Green Gallery in
New York in 1964. The seven untitled
works played on the relationships
between viewer, object, and exhibition space. It was very much a phenomenological analysis, as Morris
called it, eleven of the objects in
space through the viewer and less,
as in Andres sculptures in the coming
years, an analysis of the conditions of
the viewer at a single point and time
of existence, prompted by the means
of place and matter. Seeing Morriss
pieces, you can recognize very well
the theatricality and literalness
which was attributed to Minimal art
in the infamous essay Art and Objecthood by Michael Fried in 1967,
which, inadvertently, was the beginning of the reception of Minimal art
being based on the phenomenological perception of the viewer.
If we compare this to Andres installation of Equivalents at the Tibor de
Nagy Gallery, we can feel the difference: it is not so much about the
different shapes of the objects meant
to be experienced and analyzed by
the spectator, but more about the
horizontal continuum, which makes
the viewer walk around these pieces,
which renders visible the horizontal
mode as a zone of human movement
and base of recognition.
Andre stresses the fact that unlike
Morris and other Minimal artists, he
has never made boxes. His pieces
were always solid. But he acknowledges the influence of Morris: The
great influence that Bob Morris had
on my work was to destructuralize
itin other words, to get rid of any
residual structural elements. I was no
longer building sculpture; I was laying it out.
When Andre, in the following year,
covered the entire floor of the gallery
space with a kind of negative version
of Equivalents, he made even more
explicit the perceptual mode which
his work requires of the viewer. Visitors could not help but step onto the
material in order to discover the configuration.
It was Donald Judd and Morris who
had seen Andres work and brought
him into the landmark group exhibition Shape and Structure at Tibor de
Nagy Gallery in 1965 (the same year
that he had his first solo exhibition).
He presented three large structural
sculptures made of prefabricated Styrofoam slabs (Crib, Coin, and Compound), by which the artist intended
not so much to fill, but to seize and
hold the space of the gallery.
Judd, who had developed his threedimensional work in the 1960s out of
his development as a painter, treated
an object in space differently: his
sculptures have a quasi industrial
look too, being manufactured and
treated with no sign of an expressive,
individual handwriting. They are, like
Andres works, totally anti-mimetic;
their form does not resemble or mimic
anything. They are objects in their
own right; they are specific, as
Judd called them from 1965 on. With
Judd, red helped to clarify their form
and define the contour and angles.
Yet they are not meant to seize and
hold the space, but are instead independent objects in a given space.
Judds works also have repetitive
forms, like the galvanized steel boxes
in the Schaffhausen collection.6 Yet
their appearance is less about their
materiality than about the variations
and their internal relationships. Like
Andre, Judd avoids composition and
illusion, but his objects are like intel-
Cada una de estas piezas de piso consiste en 120 ladrillos apilados en dos capas
idnticas. Pero cada forma rectangular
difera de acuerdo con la variacin de
la relacin entre el nmero y la direccin
de las caras mayores y menores, que era
diferente para cada escultura. Posteriormente, las 8 esculturas pasaron por una
turbulenta serie de peripecias: fueron
vendidas separadamente y, como el material era muy delicado, algunas fueron
destruidas y vueltas a hacer. Una caus
sensacin en 1976 al ser adquirida por
la Galera Tate de Londres. Durante los
aos setentas era todava difcil comunicar la nocin, que pertenece de hecho
al sentido comn, de que los ladrillos
pueden ser arte. Sand-lime Instar es una
pieza que consiste en la totalidad de
todas las 8 configuraciones de la serie
Equivalent . Esta nueva pieza permanecer ntegra y no ser dividida en piezas
individuales, un procedimiento que Andre ha utilizado a menudo en el pasado,
tratndose de otros grupos de obras.
De la misma manera, y ya desde 1969,
Andre haba creado su 37 th Piece of Work
para su prxima exhibicin en el Museo
Guggenheim en 1970. Los 36 Plains eran
agrupados, como dobles, en una pieza
compuesta ms grande que fe instalada
en el piso del atrio de dicho museo, diseado por Frank Lloyd Wright.
Hablando de instalaciones a gran escala, quisiera sealar algunas de las

diferencias entre la obra de Andre y la
de otros artistas a los que se les llama
minimalistas. Robert Morris, quien haba abandonado la pintura en 1961, tuvo
una exhibicin importante de esculturas
de cajas pintadas de gris en la Galera
Green de Nueva York en 1964. Las siete
obras sin ttulo jugaban con las relaciones entre obser vador, objeto y espacio
de exhibicin. Era ciertamente un anlisis fenomenolgico, segn Morris (11
objetos en el espacio a travs del observador) y menos, como en las esculturas
de Andre en los aos siguientes, un anlisis de las condiciones del obser vador,
situado en un punto nico del espacio y
la existencia, determinado por el lugar y
la materia. Contemplando las piezas de
Morris, uno puede reconocer muy bien la
teatralidad y la literalidad como caractersticas atribuidas al minimalismo
por Michael Friend en su clebre ensayo
Art and Objecthood en 1967, el cual,
sin querer, marc el inicio de la recepcin
del arte minimalista como algo basado
en la percepcin fenomenolgica del
observador.
Si comparamos esto con la instalacin de
Equivalents, de Andre, en la Galera Tibor de Nagy, captamos la diferencia: no
45
se trata tanto de las diversas formas de

los objetos que el espectador debe experimentar y analizar, sino ms bien de la
continuidad, que obliga al espectador a
dar una vuelta alrededor de estas pieza,
revelando la modalidad horizontal como
una zona de movimiento humano y base
del reconocimiento.
Andre recalca el hecho de que, a diferencia de Morris y otros minimalistas,
l nunca hizo cajas. Sus piezas eran
siempre slidas. Pero s reconoce la influencia de Morris: La gran influencia
que Bob Morris ha tenido sobre mi obra
es en desestructurarla es decir, eliminar
en ella cualquier residuo de elementos
estructurales. Yo ya no construa escultura; la situaba.
Al ao siguiente, cuando cubri todo el
piso del espacio de galera con una especie de versin negativa de Equivalents,
Andre explicit aun ms la modalidad
perceptual que su obra exige al observador. Los visitantes no podan menos
que pisar el material para conocer su
configuracin.
Donald Judd y Morris fueron quienes
haban visto la obra de Andre y la haban incorporado a la exhibicin grupal
tan importante Shape and Structure en
la Galera Tibor de Nagy en 1965 (el
mismo ao que Andre tuvo su primera
exhibicin solo). Present tres grandes
esculturas estructurales hechas de bloques de espuma de poliestireno (Crib,
Coin y Compound), con las cuales el
artista pretenda no tanto llenar, sino
asir el espacio [de la galera] y sostenerlo.
Judd, que haba desarrollado su obra tridimensional en los sesentas, partiendo
de su experiencia como pintor, trataba
el objeto en el espacio de modo distinto:
sus esculturas poseen una cualidad casi
industrial, ya que las fabricaba y manejaba sin imprimirles un sello expresivo
individual. Estas obras, al igual que las
de Andre, son totalmente antimimticas;
su forma no semeja ni imita nada. Constituyen objetos por s solos; son obras
especficas, como Judd las denominaba a partir de 1965. Judd aprovech el
color rojo para aclarar su forma y definir
los contornos y ngulos. Sin embargo, no
tienen la intencin de asir y sostener el
espacio, sino que son objetos independientes en un espacio dado.
Las obras de Judd tambin se caracterizan por sus formas repetitivas, como
las cajas de acero galvanizado 6 de la coleccin Schaffhausen. Pero su apariencia
tiene menos que ver con su materialidad
que con sus variaciones y relaciones internas.
Judd, como Andre, evita la composicin
y la ilusin, mas sus objetos son como
instrumentos intelectuales que aguzan el
intelecto de quien los contempla. Funcio-
tured, often colored florescent bulbs,

but they extend beyond their own materiality. Like Morris, Judd and LeWitt,
coming from painting, he developed
objects that would be able to, literally, transcend their original frame or
pedestal into the mundane world. It
is the relationship of light, color, and
space which interests him. The fluorescent light immerses the space into
zones of a very fundamental experience of continuity and discontinuity,
only to be realized in the movement
of an active beholder.
nan mediante una sofisticada manera de

jugar con nuestra percepcin, aunque no
de la forma corporal en que nos llega Andre, por la inmediatez de los materiales
utilizados. La obra de Judd parece depender ms bien de la inmediatez de una
proposicin terica, verificada por una
respuesta intelectual. Por su cuidadosa
fabricacin industrial, las estructuras
complejas de Sol LeWitt no slo excluyen
cualquier toque artstico individual, sino
que logran convertir paradjicamente el
potencial analtico de un sistema repetitivo en el contrario de s mismo: una
y LeWitt, Flavin, que se inici en la pintura, desarroll objetos que podan transcender literalmente su marco o pedestal
original, penetrando en el mundo real.
Lo que le interesa es la relacin entre
luz, color y espacio. La luz fluorescente
sumerge el espacio en zonas de una muy
fundamental experiencia de la continuidad y la discontinuidad, que slo cobran
identidad con el movimiento de un espectador activo.
serie de geometras con un orden pro-
Con respecto al significado de los es-
puesto, y posiblemente comprensible,
pacios y de la percepcin a travs del

obser vador, hay que reconocer la im-
pasa a ser, otra vez por la percepcin de
Speaking of the significance of spaces and of perception through the

beholder, we must realize by now
how importanthow potentially
perilousis any re-installation of Andres sculptures. I would like to present some installation shots from the
large retrospective which I organized
in Germany in 1996. The exhibition
took place at two venues concurrently: one was at the two modernist
villas, Haus Lange and Haus Esters,
built in the late 1920 by Mies van der
Rohe in Krefeld, and now used as
exhibition spaces. The other part of
the exhibition was held at the newly
inaugurated Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in the middle of Germany. The
spaces in Krefeld were former private
homes of art collectors and provided
smaller scale rooms than the newly
built, quasi-industrial space of the museum in the small city of Wolfsburg.
Their spaces were large enough to
accommodate bigger pieces, and
by design, no exhibition architecture
produced interruptions and divisions
in the existing suite of spaces.
To prepare the exhibition, the artist
and I worked from the inventory of
existing works and from the given ar-
un espectador analtico, una experiencia

irracional. No se trata tanto de realizar
determinadas reglas matemticas y perceptuales y distorsiones de la forma, sino
de la exageracin de la cognicin, que
genera algo no inmediatamente comprensible. Las piezas de LeWitt se basan
firmemente en ideas preconcebidas, que
luego sern ejecutadas por otros. Esto
distingue a su obra de la de Andre, quien
se aproxima a la cuestin en forma directa, fsicamente corporal, que requiere
una comprensin igualmente orientada
hacia el espacio. Sol LeWitt, que acu la frase arte conceptual en 1965,
empleaba un mtodo que puede verse
como anlogo a la prctica de Andre.
Ante los hechos de la vida diaria, Andre suele afirmar que trata de pensar
mentalmente. Podramos ampliar este
concepto al advertir que en sus obras, y
a diferencia de Sol LeWitt, Andre intenta
pensar fsicamente. Dan Flavin es otro
artista asociado con el arte minimalista y
cuya obra puede entenderse mediante la
fenomenologa y la percepcin. Sus esculturas estn hechas con focos fluorescentes fabricados industrialmente, generalmente de colores, los cuales alcanzan
una expresividad ms all de su propia
materialidad. Al igual que Morris, Judd
portancia, y el posible peligro, de la

reinstalacin de las esculturas de Andre.
Quisiera presentar algunas fotos de la
instalacin de la retrospectiva que organic en Alemania en 1996. El evento
tuvo verificativo simultneamente en
dos sitios, uno de ellos las dos villas
modernistas, Haus Lange y Haus Esters,
construidas a finales de los aos veintes
por Mies van der Rohe en Krefeld y utilizadas actualmente como espacios de
exhibicin.
El otro sitio fue el recin inaugurado
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, en Alemania
central. Los espacios de Krefeld haban
sido residencias particulares de coleccionistas de arte, y sus habitaciones eran
ms pequeas que los modernos espacios casi industriales del museo ubicado
en el pueblo de Wolfsburg. Sus espacios
eran lo suficientemente grandes para
acomodar piezas de tamao grande, y
se asegur que la arquitectura de la exhibicin no interrumpira ni dividira el
conjunto de los espacios existentes.
Para preparar la exhibicin, el artista y
yo partimos del inventario de obras existentes y del plano arquitectnico que nos
fue facilitado. Desde el punto de vista artstico, si se me permite la obser vacin,
la dificultad consista en que el proce-
Fig. 17: B iC dIn , L on do n, 1991. C o lle c ti on o f th e a rti st.
Fig. 16: T e tr apo lis, D ssel do rf, 199 5. M oc c a a n d Frits Me tze le r, D sse ld orf.
lectual instruments to sharpen our

mind while looking at them. They
function through a highly refined way
of playing with our perception, yet
not in the bodily way in which an Andre approaches us, by the immediacy
of the materials he uses. Judds work
seems to be more about the immediacy of a theoretical proposal, being
verified through intellectual response.
By their refined industrial fabrication,
Sol LeWitts complex structures
not only deny any individual artistic
touch, they even turn the analytical
potential of a repetitive system into its
paradoxical opposite: a proposed,
and possibly traceable, comprehensible order of geometrics becomes,
again through the perception of an
analyzing viewer, an irrational experience. It is less about realizing
certain mathematic and perceptional
rules and distortions of forms than
about taking pleasure in an overkill
of cognition, which is turned into
something not immediately to be understood. LeWitts pieces are based
very much on preconceived ideas,
which can then be executed by others. This distinguishes his work from
Andres, whose approach is direct,
physically body-based, requiring an
equally space-oriented reception.
Sol LeWitt, who termed the phrase
conceptual art in 1965, employed
a method which can be seen as a
counterpart to Andres practice.
When confronted with issues of daily
life, Andre will often say he is trying
to think mentally. We might extend
this idea by noting that in his artworks, and in contrast to Sol LeWitt,
he is trying to think physically.Dan
Flavin is another artist associated with
Minimal art whose work can be considered through issues of phenomenology and perception. His sculptures
are made from industrially manufac-
46

dimiento seguido por un historiador del
Fig. 18: Zinc Inside-Outside Piece, Dsseldorf, 1969. Collection of Konrad und Dorothee Fischer, Dsseldorf.
chitectural floor plans. The difficulty

artistically, if I may say so, was that
the procedure an art historian uses
to select and place works was totally
different from the artists method. He
has said his work is not about ideas
but about desires, meaning that he
would never sit down at a table to
conceive a show. As mentioned, he
prefers to think physically, if we can
use the word as the antonym of mentally, which means that whenever he
creates new work, it comes about in
the space itself and with the material
given or the matter and element sizes/proportions decided upon beforehand. This working procedure might
exclude any retrospective thinking,
since immediacy in the handling of
the matter would be lost. Anyway,
over time we found a way to collaborate, mainly through me selecting and
proposing works of different types
and from different years, in order to
encompass, to the best possible degree, an overview of his work y et
taking into account the comments of
the artist about the contexts in which
the works originated. It was never a
question of mimicking former spaces,
but of finding the generic equivalent
for a space, so as to give the piece its
best possible context. Let me give you
some examples:
The small-scale exercises were
placed in Krefeld in an existing wall
showcase, so that they did not pretend to be sculptures in their own
right, on pedestals or under a museum-type device like a protective
Plexiglass hood, but were presented
more as casual try-outs, outcomes
of a development in sculptural thinking. Other pieces, like Pyramus and
Thisbe, required very specific situations. It found its ideal place in two
adjacent rooms. The sculpture is
named after the mythological couple
Pyramus and Thisbe, and inherent
to its configuration is the sharing
of a wall from opposite sides. In
Krefeld they were placed in the two
former bedrooms of the parents in
Haus Lange.
Years before at the Krefeld museum,
Andre had had a solo show entirely
devoted to wood. The placement,
for example, of a timber sculpture,
Tetrapolis [fig. 16], shows why his
form of constructivism pairs well with
Mies philosophy of basic building,
summed up in his famous dictum: Architecture begins when you place two
bricks carefully together. The installations of several flat metal floor pieces at Haus Esters profited by, and at
the same time emphasized, the more
floating character of this house,
arte para seleccionar e instalar obras

era totalmente diferente del mtodo del
artista. Andre ha dicho que su obra no
tiene que ver con las ideas sino con los
deseos, dando a entender que nunca se
sentara a una mesa con la intencin de
concebir una exhibicin. Como mencionamos anteriormente, l prefiere pensar fsicamente, si podemos usar este
trmino como antnimo de mentalmente, y esto quiere decir que cuando crea
una obra nueva, sta surge en el espacio
mismo y con el material dado o con la
materia y los elementos de determinados
tamaos y proporciones decididos de
antemano. Este plan de trabajo podra
excluir cualquier nocin de pensamiento
retrospectivo, para no perder el sentido de inmediatez en el manejo del asunto. Con todo, nuestra colaboracin fue
armoniosa. Yo escoga y propona obras
de distintos tipos y aos diferentes, para
alcanzar la visin ms panormica posible de su obra, tomando en cuenta al
mismo tiempo los comentarios del artista
which has fewer wall divisions than

Haus Lange. The long, small, and
delicate piece BiCdIn Contrail [fig.
17] (made out of highly poisonous
bismuth, cadmium, and indium) connects and marks, like a demarcation
line, the Haus Esters rooms facing the
garden side, which quite often have
to fight the strong sunlight flooding in.
One of the few slant pieces, which
start off from an angled element at the
wall, brought a dynamic to a room
which was structurally closely related
to its adjacent, bigger room a bit
like an appendix, perhaps, or an unwanted addendum seeking an exit.
The theme of Zinc Inside-Outside
Piece [fig. 18] can also be found in
Mies architecture, playing on the
connection between the interior of the
building and the nature surrounding it
outside through a number of characteristically large windows and terrace
doors with glass.
By combining two pieces, we served
several needs. In a public exhibition
space, this Spill (Scatter Piece), made
out of tiny elements and by its nature
extremely vulnerable, needed protection. It was shown in a small room together with the wood piece Palisade,
whose configuration defines it as a
barrier. (This was not the first time that
Andre made artistic decisions pragmatically, or according to security
needs. An entire set of tiny sculptures
was exhibited in the water basin of
the Museum of Modern Art in order to
prevent people from taking the small
elements away.)
The pieces in the large exhibition
hall at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
acerca de los contextos en los cuales se

originaron las obras. No se trat nunca
de imitar espacios anteriores, sino de
encontrar el equivalente genrico de un
espacio dado, para contextuar una pieza de la manera ms eficaz. Mencionar
a continuacin algunos ejemplos:
Los ejercicios a menor escala se colocaron en Krefeld, en una vitrina de pared
ya existente, para que no pretendieran
constituir esculturas por s solas, sobre
pedestales o exhibidas bajo un aparato protector de plexigls tpico de los
museos. Se ofrecieron ms bien como
experimentos informales, resultado de
una manifestacin del pensamiento escultural. Otras piezas, como Pyramus
and Thisbe, exigan situaciones muy
especficas. Esta obra encontr su nicho
ideal en dos habitaciones contiguas. La
configuracin de esta escultura, cuyo
nombre alude a la conocida pareja mitolgica, se presta a compartir una sola
pared, desde lados opuestos. En Krefeld
fueron colocadas en las dos habitaciones
adyacentes que haban sido las alcobas
de los padres en Haus Lange.
Aos antes, en el Museo Krefeld, Andre
haba exhibido obras nicamente de
madera. La colocacin, por ejemplo, de
una escultura de madera, Tetrapolis [fig.
16], revela por qu el constructivismo de
Andre se acopla bien con la filosofa de
construccin bsica de Mies, resumida
en su famoso dictamen: La arquitectura
comienza cuando se ponen dos ladrillos
juntos. La instalacin de varias piezas
planas de metal en Haus Esters se benefici por el carcter flotante de esta
casa, al mismo tiempo que subrayaba
dicha calidad, ya que existen en ella
menos divisiones de pared que en Haus
47
Lange. La pieza BiCdIn Contrail [fig. 17],

larga y delicada y hecha de bismuto,
cadmio e indium, sustancias sumamente
venenosas, comunica y delimita, como
una lnea de demarcacin, las habitaciones de Haus Ester que se orientan hacia el jardn, que con frecuencia deben
combatir la fuerte luz solar que lucha por
entrar en ellas.
Una de las pocas piezas montadas al sesgo, que parten desde un elemento angular en la pared, agreg cierta dinmica
a una habitacin que se relacionaba
estrechamente con otro cuarto contiguo
ms grande un poco a la manera de un
apndice, tal vez, o como un elemento
agregado que busca salida.
El tema de Zinc Inside-Outside Piece
[fig. 18] puede hallarse tambin en la
arquitectura de Mies, jugando con la
conexin entre el interior de un edificio
y la naturaleza que lo rodea al exterior
mediante una serie de ventanas tpicamente agrandadas y puertas de vidrios
en la terraza.
Al combinar dos piezas, cumplimos varios propsitos. En un espacio de exhibicin pblico, Spill (Scatter Piece), hecho
de elementos muy pequeos y por lo
tanto muy frgil, requera proteccin. Se
exhibi en una habitacin pequea junto
con una pieza de madera, Palisade, cuya
configuracin la define como una barrera. (sta no fue la primera vez que Andre
tom una decisin artstica por motivos
pragmticos o de seguridad. Un conjunto
entero de diminutas esculturas fue exhibido dentro de un tanque de agua en el
Museo de Arte Moderno para impedir
que la gente le sustrajera sus partecitas.)
Las piezas exhibidas en la gran sala del
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg [fig. 19] corran
F ig. 19 : C A RL A N D RE S C UL P TOR 19 9 6 . WOL F SBURG AT LA RGE, in sta ll ation view.
school in Long Island City, New York.

By its title this piece alludes to the former school as well as to musicthe
Lament is also a traditional tune for
Scottish bagpipes. The piece might
raise questions about the possibilities,
or the ethics, of recreation, to which
the artist would counter: When a
work is created it is neither possible
nor desirable to recreate the original
environment of the work. The new environment must satisfy certain generic
conditions of space, light, strength of
structure, etc., in order to permit the
physical realization of the work. But
as Heraclitus said: We can never
step in the same river twice.
This piece also tells us a lot about a
general misconception of Minimal art
as being emptied of content and meaning. Andre stresses the fact that art is
not a symbol of something, because
menos riesgo de ser sustradas. Los visitantes deban pasear por el espacio, asumiendo diferentes posturas para contemplar las piezas. Esta foto tal vez resulte un
poquito engaosa, porque en ella la instalacin se ve como si estuviera dispuesta
con mucho esmero, pero la gente no la
percibi as, porque intentaba acercarse
a las acumulaciones para investigar el
material. La experiencia era parecida a
vagar por un campo abierto y encontrar
diferentes situaciones en el camino.
Wolfsburg ofreca la oportunidad de
recrear piezas grandes que haban sido
destruidas desde haca mucho tiempo.
Lament for the Children [fig. 20], por
ejemplo, que fue creado originalmente
para la exhibicin inaugural del centro
de arte contempornea P.S. 1, antes una
escuela pblica en Long Island City, Nueva York. El ttulo de esta pieza alude a la
antigua escuela y tambin a la msica: el
Fig. 20: La me n t fo r t h e C hil d re n, N ew York, 1976.

r oom s p. s. 1 ( in a ugu ra l sh ow) . C oll e ct ion o f th e artis t.
[fig.19] were less in danger of being

taken away by visitors. Visitors were
meant to stroll around this space,
assuming different positions on and
around the pieces. The photograph
might be a bit misleading i t very
much looks like a rigorously composed installation, yet it was hardly
perceived like that, since people
would always try to get close to the
accumulations in order to investigate
the material. The experience was
very much like wandering around in
a large field and encountering different situations on the way.
Wolfsburg offered the opportunity
to recreate large pieces which had
been long since destroyed. Lament
for the Children [fig. 20], for example, which was originally created for
the inaugural show of the contemporary art center P.S. 1, a former public
48
Lamento es tambin una tonada tradicional para gaita escocesa. Dicha pieza
podra suscitar dudas en cuanto a las posibilidades, o la tica, de la re-creacin,
a lo que el artista contestara: Cuando
se crea una obrano es ni posible ni deseable recrear el entorno original de la
misma. El nuevo entorno debe satisfacer
ciertas condiciones genricas del espacio, la luz, la resistencia de la estructura,
etc., para posibilitar la realizacin fsica
de la obra. Pero como ha postulado Herclito: No se puede baar dos veces en
el mismo ro.
Al mismo tiempo, esta pieza nos revela
mucho acerca de un concepto errneo del
arte minimalista como privado de contenido y significado. Andre insiste en el hecho de que el arte no es smbolo de nada,
porque eso implicara que el arte comunica, lo cual no es cierto. Pero tambin
afirma que sus obras nunca pueden

librarse de los smbolos. Para m es su
existencia lo que importa. Como artista
no soy idealista Trato de descubrir mis
F ig. 21 : A n gelimb , N ew Y ork , 19 9 5 . C oll ec tion of th e a rt ist.
that would imply that art communicates, which it does not. But he also
states that his works can never be free
of symbols. But to me its their existence
which is important. I am not an idealist as an artist I try to discover my visions in the conditions of the world. Its
the conditions which are important.
He is even willing to concede that
his art is expressive: It is expressive
of that which can be expressed in no
other way. Hence, to say that art has
meaning is mistaken because then you
believe that there is some message that
the art is carrying like the telegraph, as
Noel Coward said. Yes, art is expressive, but it is expressive of that which
can be expressed in no other way. So,
it cannot be said to have a meaning
which is separable from its existence
in the world.
Another Wolfsburg installation, an
enormously long gallery contained
three very large pieces: the Uncarved
Blocks ensemble, which follow, in their
orientation of elements, the compass
rose; at the far end, a corner piece
of copper; and as a kind of extended
hyphen between these very different
places to orientate and position yourself, an element like a road, which
literally underlines the visitors movement and plane of existence. Not
only this combination of works, but
especially the large, overwhelming
fields like Lament for the Children, or
other configurations with single modules placed on the floor over a regular
grid, may encourage us to think about
questions of meaning which might finally be applied to and deducted from
these sculptures. It is not just a matter
of marking a place on earth, it is also
a marker of having been there; it is
about the end, and it is about death.
When asked whether this reading
isnt too pessimistic, Andre once answered: Its not optimistic or pessimistic. Its the nature of reality.
It would be going too far to explain,
for each individual piece, the criteria
for its selection, so let me give as a last
example Angellimb [fig. 21], which is
made out of 65 poplar planks forming
a curved 65-unit row. It was originally
made for the former Paula Cooper
Gallery, which had iron columns that
interrupted the surface of the floor in
a way that had always annoyed the
artist during his long exhibition history
with the gallery. Finally he devised
for the space these playfully curved
forms, making a virtue out of necessity. Luckily, Wolfsburg provided a
similar opportunity to accommodate
one of these pieces.
Andres workas minimalist as it may
appearrequires more than a rough
visiones en las condiciones del mundo.

Las condiciones son las que cuentan. El
artista est dispuesto incluso a reconocer
que su arte es expresivo: Expresa aquello que no puede expresarse de otra manera. Por ende, aseverar que el arte tiene
significado es errneo, porque luego uno
cree que hay algn mensaje que el arte
transmite, como un telgrafo, para citar
a Noel Coward. S, el arte es expresivo,
pero expresa lo que no puede expresarse
de otra manera. Por eso, no puede tener
un significado separable de su existencia
en el mundo.
La siguiente imagen, de una instalacin
overview, and cannot be perceived

from any one, overall standpoint. I
have tried to supply some information,
which basically comes from someone
who is not so much a scholar as an
exhibitions maker, concerning the material facts of art works in space.
Nevertheless, I hope that my explorations into Andres work may resonate
as you take your time and experience
the pieces in this exhibition here in
Marfa. Be aware that, not only for a
curatorial approach or a lecture, but
also for its true perception, the work
needs time, care, and love. Bearing
this in mind, perhaps you will encounter the joyful experience that Andres teachers at Andover, Maud and
Patrick Morgan, first told him about.
de Wolfsburg, muestra una galera extremadamente larga con tres piezas muy
grandes: el conjunto Uncar ved Blocks,
que siguen, en cuanto a la orientacin de
sus elementos, la rosa de los vientos de
una brjula; a un extremo, una pieza de
cobre; y como una especie de guin entre
estos lugares diferentes para orientarse
uno y posicionarse, un elemento como
un camino, que subraya literalmente el
movimiento del visitante y su plano de
existencia. No slo esta combinacin de
obras, sino especialmente las extraordinarias configuraciones grandes como
Lament for the Children, y otros ejemplos
en que un solo mdulo se coloca sobre el
piso encima de un espacio cuadriculado,
nos invitan a pensar en cuestiones de significado que en ltima instancia puedan
aplicarse a estas esculturas o restarse de
aqu cierta informacin, la cual ofrezco

no como estudioso del arte, sino como
realizador de exhibiciones, enfocndome en los hechos materiales de las obras
de arte en el espacio.
No obstante, espero que mis exploraciones de la obra del artista puedan encontrar resonancia para ustedes mientras
tomen su tiempo para apreciar las piezas que componen esta exhibicin aqu
en Marfa. Tengan presente que, no slo
dentro del contexto de una conferencia
informativa o un anlisis curatorial, sino
tambin para su adecuada percepcin,
estas obras requieren que se les dedique
tiempo, cuidado y amor. Si parten de
esta premisa, tal vez encontrarn la experiencia regocijada de que los maestros de Andre, Maud y Patrick Morgan,
le hablaron originalmente en Andover.
ellas. No se trata slo de marcar un lugar

en la tierra, sino de que es tambin un
marcador de haber estado en ese lugar;
Eva Meyer-Hermann is an independent curator,
se trata del fin y de la muerte. Le pre-
currently based in Cologne, Germany.
guntaron a Andre si esta interpretacin
Eva Meyer-Hermann es una curadora independiente, con base en Colonia, Alemania.
es demasiado pesimista, y el artista res-
NO T ES
pondi: No es ni optimista ni pesimista.
1 Carl Andre Sculptor 1996 Krefeld at
N O TA S
Es la ndole de la realidad.
home / Wolfsburg at large, Krefeld Haus
Sera excesivo explicar los criterios de
Lange & Haus Esters and Kunstmuseum
home / Wolfsburg at large, Krefeld Hause
seleccin de cada una de las piezas, y
Wolfsburg, Germany, simultaneous exhibi-
Lange & House Esters y Kunst Museum Wol-
por lo tanto dar como ltimo ejemplo
tions.
fsburg, Alemania, Exhibiciones simultneas.
el caso de Angellimb [fig. 21], que est
2 Carl Andre, Galerie Tschudi, 1993; Pb
hecho de 65 tablas de lamo que for-
Cu, Galerie Tschudi, 1995; Galerie Tschudi,
Cu, Galera Tschudi, 1995; Galera Tschudi,
man una hilera de 65 unidades. Se hizo
1997; Carl Andre, Galerie Tschudi, 1998;
1997; Carl Andre, Galera Tschudi, 1998;
originalmente para la antigua Galera
Poetry / TryPoe, Galerie Tschudi, 2000;
Poetr y /Tr yPoe, Galera Tschudi, 2000; Carl
Paula Cooper, donde haba columnas
Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt, Galerie Tschudi,
Andre and Sol LeWitt, Galera Tschudi, 2000;
de hierro que interrumpan la superficie
2000; Carl Andre Copper Cubes, Gal-
Carl Andre Copper Cubes, Galera Tschudi,
del piso de una manera que siempre ha-
erie Tschudi, 2002; Carl Andre / Copper
2002; Carl Andre / Copper Timber, Galera
ba molestado al artista durante todo el
Timber, Galerie Tschudi, 2003; Thank You
Tschudi, 2003; Thank You Glarus Carl An-
tiempo que exhiba all. Por fin ide para
Glarus Carl Andre, Kunsthaus 2003.
dre, Kunsthaus, 2003.
dichos espacios estas juguetonas formas
3 Carl Andre: Cuts in Space, Chinati
curvas, convirtiendo la necesidad en vir-
Foundation, Marfa TX 20102011.
Chinati, Marfa TX 20102011.
tud. Por suerte, Wolfsburg le brind una
4 Carl Andre: Cuts in Space, Chinati
oportunidad semejante de acomodar
Foundation, Marfa TX 20102011.
Chinati, Marfa TX 20102011.
una de estas piezas.
La obra de Andre, por minimalista que
19591977,N.Y., c.1978.
pueda aparecer, requiere ms que un
somero vistazo y no puede ser percibi-
The Block, Marfa TX.
da debidamente desde un solo punto de

vista global. He intentado proporcionar
49
David Bourdon,Carl Andre, Sculpture

Currently installed at Judd Foundation,
Carl Andre Sculptor 1996 Krefeld at
Carl Andre, Galera Tschudi, 1993; Pb
Carl Andre: Cuts in Space, Fundacin
Carl Andre: Cuts in Space, Fundacin
David Bourdon, Carl Andre, Sculpture
1959 1977, Nueva York, ca. 1978.

6
Instaladas actualmente en la Fundacin
Judd, La Mansana, Marfa TX.
Judd-like
R ICHA R D DEACON
Al estilo de Judd
Richard Deacon Al estilo de Judd
AL ESTILO DE JUDD
En la localidad de Marfa, residencia y
estudio de Donald Judd en el oeste de
Texas, sus obras no son permanentes, si
bien l as lo deseaba. En escultura, la
permanencia se asocia con la muerte (y
de algn modo con el fascismo), ninguno
de los cuales, en mi opinin, se acerca
siquiera remotamente al pensamiento
de Judd.
PRUEBAS ANECDTICAS
Edward Said, en su ensayo On Late
J UDD - L I K E
At Marfa, Donald Judds studio and
living place in West Texas, the works
are not permanent but Judd wished
them to be. Permanence in sculpture
is associated with death (and, somewhat, with fascism) neither of which I
think of as remotely Judd-like.
Style, describe una situacin en la que un

artista, que maneje bien los medios expresivos de su profesin, produce obras
que tratan de transmitir lo inefable. El
oyente o espectador se siente conmovido, tal vez desconcertado o perplejo,
porque sabe que algo se est diciendo,
pero no es capaz de integrarlo en una
unidad expresiva. Entre los ejemplos
ANECDO TA L EVIDENCE
In Edward Saids essay On Late
Style he describes a position where
an artist, in command of all their
expressive means, makes work that
attempts to convey something inexpressible. The viewer or listener is
left overwhelmed and perhaps confused and bewildered, aware that
something is being said but not able
to integrate that into an expressive
whole. Amongst his examples were
Beethovens late quartets and Picassos late paintings. This is a wonderful
essay and I persuaded Lynne Cooke
to read it, in part because I wanted to
discuss the more recent sculptures of
women by Thomas Schutte in relation
to its premise. In the way of things, the
discussion broadened and we began
to wonder if there were any artists
amongst the group in the Dia collection who could be said to have a late
style. Judd's name came upat this
point I hadnt been to the installations
at Marfait seemed a possibility, but
we left it at that. Slightly later Lynne
asked me if I was interested to contribute to the Artists on Art series,
where artists are invited to discuss the
work of artists in the Dia collection.
This was early in October 2004. I
was due to go to Dallas later in the
month and had arranged to go on to
Marfa, so I said Judd. He is an artist
that I have found important for a variety of reasons at various stages in my
life, so it was an opportunity both to
reflect on that and perhaps to answer
our speculation about late style in
his work.
At the west end of the great Romanesque cathedral of Durham there is a
que cita estn los ltimos cuartetos de

Beethoven y los ltimos cuadros de Picasso. Es un ensayo maravilloso, de la
lectura del cual convenc a Lynne Cooke,
en parte porque quera comentar las
esculturas femeninas ms recientes de
Thomas Schutte bajo sus premisas. Como
de costumbre, la conversacin se alarg
y empezamos a preguntarnos si haba
algn artista de la coleccin del Detroit
Institute of Arts (DIA) del que se pudiera
apuntar que posee un estilo tardo. El
nombre de Judd apareci en ese momento yo no haba estado an en las instalaciones de Marfa y se nos antoj que
poda encajar, pero eso fue todo. Poco
despus Lynne me pregunt si me interesara contribuir en la serie Artists on
Art, en la que se invita a varios artistas a
comentar la obra de los artistas que forman la coleccin del DIA. Esto fue a principios de octubre de 2004. Tena previsto
marchar a Dallas ms tarde ese mismo
mes y continuar hasta Marfa, entonces
eleg a Judd. Para m ha sido un artista
importante por varias razones en varias
etapas de mi vida, por eso la propuesta
de Lynne constituy una oportunidad
para reflexionar sobre ello y tambin
para responder a nuestra elucubracin
sobre el estilo tardo en su obra.
En el lado oeste de la gran catedral romnica de Durham se alza una capilla
anexa. Se trata de un espacio exquisito,
columnas estrechas sostienen el tejado
abovedado y la pared oriental retiene
numerosos elementos de los frescos
originales. A un tercio de distancia de
la entrada y a un lado del eje de este
a oeste que conduce al altar, hay una
tumba de granito. Es un bloque sobrio
de aproximadamente setenta y cinco
centmetros de altura, ciento veinte de
51
fondo y doscientos de longitud, colocado

transversalmente en el espacio. Grabado en la superficie superior, en letra muy
sencilla, se lee el nombre BEDE. Se trata
de la tumba del venerable Bede, monje
del siglo XVIII, extraordinario estudioso
y corresponsal internacional, autor de la
Ecclesiastical Histor y of the English Nation y primer historiador ingls. La tumba desprende una seguridad humilde,
ubicada en el lugar preciso para aduearse (y obstruir) el espacio, al tiempo
que no toma el centro del mismo y por
tanto no es glorificada, de modo que a
menudo he pensado que es caracterstica de Judd.
Cerca de la antigua central elctrica
Bankside de Southwark, hogar actual
de la Tate Modern, se encuentra una estacin de ensayo del siglo XIX (un laboratorio de pruebas) llamada Kirkaldys
Testing and Experimenting Works. En el
interior de este edificio hay una mquina
esplndida capaz de medir y registrar
el comportamiento de muestras de materiales introducidos en los recursos de
agarre y sujecin, que bajo su control se
doblan, se extienden, se retuercen, se
empujan, se parten, se comprimen, se
calientan y enfran, etc. Sobre la entrada delantera del edificio hay grabado,
tambin en un estilo de letra sencillo, el
lema H E C H O S , N O O P I N I O N E S .
De igual forma, siempre he considerado
algo as tpico de Judd.
La primera vez que vi una obra de Donald Judd fue a finales de 1968 o principios de 1969 en la Tate Galler y de Londres, en una muestra itinerante llamada
Art of the Real. La exposicin presentaba
arte norteamericano, en su mayor parte
de Nueva York, de mediados de los sesenta. La pieza de Judd en la muestra era
una pila vertical de cajas galvanizadas,
cuyos fondos y partes superiores eran de
plexigls morado claro, y abarcaban del
suelo al techo de uno de los espacios de
la galera. No la entend. Sin embargo,
el hecho de apenas recordar el resto de
las obras de la muestra (tal vez un par de
cuadros negros de Stella) es significativo
de que en mi memoria qued registrada
aquella obra, ya que puedo describirla
de manera bastante precisa. No la entenda porque no haba visto nada parecido hasta el momento, pero la recuerdo
con mucha nitidez.
La ordenacin de las cosas es algo que
me ha interesado de manera persistente de adolescente trabaj en una
fbrica agrcola durante las vacaciones
escolares, y me llamaban la atencin las
distintas maneras en que bolsas y sacos
de muy diversos tamaos eran apilados
para conformar una carga segura en
los pals. Tambin fui por un tiempo
un entusiasta coleccionista de sellos, pasaba horas disponiendo los cuadrados
Ph ot o gra p hs by Ric h ar d D ea c on .
sister chapel. This is a refined space,

the vaulted roof supported on thin
columns and the east wall retaining
many elements of original fresco. At
a position about a third of the way in
and off centre to the central east-west
axis leading to the altar, there is a
black granite tomb chest. This is a
simple, unadorned block about two
and a half feet high by four feet deep
and seven feet long placed transversely across the space. Carved into
the top surface, in a very plain letter
face, is the name BEDE . This is the
tomb of the Venerable Bede, eighth
century monk, astounding scholar
and international correspondent, author of the Ecclesiastical History of
the English Nation and the first English historian. There is an assertive
humbleness to the tomb chest, precisely placed so as to command (and
obstruct) the space, whilst not being
glorified by taking up the centre, that
I have often thought of as being characteristically Judd-like.
Near the old Bankside power station
in Southwark, now the home of Tate
Modern, is a nineteenth century assay stationa materials testing laboratoryKirkaldys Testing And Experimenting Works. Inside is a magnificent machine that can measure and
record the behaviour of material samples put into its various clamping and
holding devices and bent, stretched,
twisted, pushed, sheared, compressed, heated, cooled, etc. under
the control of the tester. Over the front
entrance of the building is carved,
again in a simple typeface, the motto
FAC T S NO T O P INIONS . This
too I have always regarded as being
characteristically Judd-like.
The first time that I saw a work of Donald Judd was in late 1968 or early 69
at the Tate Gallery, London in a touring show called Art Of The Real.
The exhibition featured American,
mostly New York, art of the mid 60s.
Judds piece in this show was a vertical stack, a series of galvanised boxes with pale purple Plexiglas tops and
bottoms running from floor to ceiling
in one of the gallery spaces. I did not
understand it. However, since I can
barely remember any other work from
this show (perhaps a couple of black
Frank Stellas) it is worth saying that
my not understanding was coupled to
a fairly precise registering of what I
had seen. I did not understand it because I had not seen anything like it
before, yet it is possible for me to recall the image with some precision.
Im not uninterested in orderingas
a teenager I worked on vacations at
an agricultural feed mill and was very
absorbed in the various ways in which

differently sized bags and sacks were
stacked to achieve a secure load on a
palette. I was also for a long time an
avid stamp collector and spent hours
arranging coloured squares and rectangles to form sets on the page. And
stacking dishes to dry after the washing up of an evening was always interesting, so perhaps the memory has
something to do with a recognition of
a correspondence with that kind of
ordering, and with the confusion in
finding it in a gallery.
The second time I encountered Donald Judds work was at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in late 1970 or
early 71 and, shortly after that, in two
shows at the Lisson Gallery, also in
London. The Whitechapel show was
mostly of metal boxes on the floor,
plus a couple of progressions on the
wall. The first Lisson Gallery show
was entirely of wall-mounted boxes,
the second included three very large
wooden boxes (probably five foot
cubes) occupying a wall in the downstairs gallery (this was the old Lisson
Gallery space in Bell Street). I was
by this time a student at St. Martins
School of Art and very interested in
American art. These were clearly important shows and I recall that I really
wanted to get something from them,
yet it was with some embarrassment
that again I realized that I did not really know what it was I saw. These
were difficult, ungiving things to be
looking at and I had no real vocabulary for doing so. It was uncomfortable. The group of wooden boxes in
the second show at the Lisson was the
first work that I felt okay with. This is
largely because the material characteristics of the grain on the shuttering
ply had some attraction and the problematic of dealing with the thin edge
of an angled piece meeting a flat face
evoked something familiar for me. But
I also knew this was a frail straw.
At the same time I sort of knew what
I was supposed to be looking at, or
what I was supposed to be seeing.
The group of students that I hung out
with at St. Martins were avid readers of Artforum, storming into the library each month for the latest issue.
And, when it came out, we all had
copies of Gregory Batcocks anthology Minimal Art. This collection was
sufficiently well known to produce appropriate obscene graffiti in the toilets
of art schools. So it wasnt that I didnt
know, it was more that I couldnt see.
In the summer of 1973 the year
after I graduated from St.MartinsI
spent three months in the States and
in Canada. I was based in Chicago
and travelled around on a go-anywhere Greyhound bus ticket. At the

time the artists that I was specifically
interested in were Smith, Pollock,
and Juddthough this trip was more
escape than research. I was quite
depressed at the time and, passing
a travel agent in Camden Town one
day, noticed that they were advertising cheap flights to the US with a
company called Jetsave50 return
if you stayed three months a nd I
desperately needed to leave England.
Ending up in Chicago was more accident than designI couldnt figure
out a way to stay in New York and a
friend of a friend sublet their apartment in Chicago to me for the summer. Whilst there I did become very
interested in Louis Sullivan and Frank
Lloyd Wright, and took a course at
the Chicago Art Institute on the work
of the Polish theatre director Jerzy
Grotowski. My itinerary for travel
was a bit quixoticI was looking for
places as much as works. I caught
busses to Bolton Landing to find the
Smith studio for example, ending up
sleeping in the woods outside the
locked gates. I bussed up to Halifax
because the Nova Scotia College of
Art and Design had just started publishing the Judd catalogue raisonn
and, because of that, I wanted to investigate their M FA programme.
I did discover on this trip that I still
wanted to be an artist, and made an
application to Nova Scotia College of
Art and Design. I was accepted, but
I turned it down as I had also been
accepted into the Department of Environmental Media at the Royal College
of Art in London. I was in love with
someone in London and there didnt
seem to be a choice.
I dont recall the Donald Judd exhibitions of the second half of the 70s
very much, but he became very important as I thought about his practice.
The work I began making was very
much in relation to issues that I connected with his work. Wholeness,
for example, became important as
an issue and at some point I began
to make works that were always
whole. At the time this involved
starting with a shape and a materiala quantity of material configured
in a given shape, a square or a disc
for exampleand restricting my actions to within those givens. A part of
this was also recognition that the real
is important (as in The Art of the Real)
and that Judds work was concerned
with what was real. However, I did not
believe that this was all that mattered.
Cans of paint or counting are only interesting if there is also a discourse
y rectngulos de colores para formar

conjuntos en la pgina del lbum. Colocar los platos en el escurridero para
que se secasen tras lavarlos era para m
una actividad atractiva, por eso quiz el
funcionamiento de la memoria tenga que
ver con reconocer una correspondencia
entre una forma de ordenamiento y otra,
con la confusin de encontrar algo as en
una galera.
La segunda vez que me tropec con la
obra de Donald Judd fue en la Whitechapel Gallery de Londres, a finales de 1970
o principios de 1971, y posteriormente
en dos muestras de la Lisson Galler y,
tambin en Londres. En la exposicin
de la Whitechapel la pieza consista en
cajas de metal sobre el suelo, ms un
par de progresiones en la pared. En la
primera muestra de la Lisson Galler y,
estaba formada enteramente por cajas
apiladas en la pared; en la segunda, la
pieza inclua tres cajones grandes de
madera (probablemente cubos de 150
cm de profundidad) que ocupaban toda
una pared en el piso inferior de la galera (esto fue en el espacio de la antigua
Lisson Gallery, en Bell Street). Por aquel
entonces estaba estudiando en la escuela de arte St. Martins y me fascinaba el
arte norteamericano. stas fueron muestras sin duda muy relevantes; recuerdo
que deseaba de verdad obtener algo
de ellas, aun cuando me daba perfecta
cuenta, no sin cierta vergenza, de que
no saba realmente lo que mis ojos contemplaban. Eran artefactos hermticos,
difciles de interpretar, y yo no posea
an el vocabulario para hacerlo. Resultaban incmodas. El grupo de cajas de
madera de la segunda muestra en Lisson
fue la primera obra con la que me sent
bien. Esto es en gran parte porque me
llamaban la atencin los rasgos materiales de la fibra sobre la madera contrachapada de las ventanas, y adems
la problemtica de trabajar con el borde
fino de una pieza angular al juntarse con
una superficie plana me evocaba algo
familiar. Pero me daba cuenta de que
pisaba un terreno resbaladizo.
Al mismo tiempo, de algn modo saba
lo que se supona deba estar mirando
o lo que supuestamente estaba viendo.
Los estudiantes con los que me mova
en St. Mar tins eran lectores vidos
de Artforum, que se lanzaban a la biblioteca cada mes para leer el nmero
correspondiente. Cuando sali, todos
fotocopiamos la antologa de Gregor y
Batcock Minimal Art. Esta coleccin era
lo suficientemente conocida para producir los consabidos grafitis obscenos en
los servicios de las escuelas de arte. As
pues, no era que no supiera del tema, lo
que suceda es que no lo vea.
En el verano de 1973 el ao siguiente
a mi graduacin pas tres meses en
52
Estados Unidos y Canad. Resid en Chicago y viaj por el pas en un autobs

de largo recorrido que llevaba a todas
partes. En aquel momento me atraa la
obra de Smith, Pollock y Judd, si bien es
cierto que el objeto de aquel viaje era
ms bien escapar que investigar. Andaba deprimido en aquel entonces y, al
pasar un da por una agencia de viajes
de Camden Town, advert que ofrecan
vuelos baratos a Estados Unidos con una
compaa llamada Jetsave, a cincuenta
libras ida y vuelta si permanecas all
tres meses. Como estaba desesperado
por dejar Inglaterra me puse en marcha.
El acabar en Chicago fue ms casualidad
que destino; no se me ocurra la manera
de quedarme en Nueva York, y el amigo
de un amigo me subarrend su apartamento de Chicago para el verano. Mientras estuve all me empec a interesar
por Louis Sullivan y Frank Lloyd Wright,
lo que me llev a hacer un curso sobre la
obra del director de teatro polaco Jerzy
Grotowski en el Chicago Arts Institute.
Lo que s descubr en aquel viaje fue que
quera ser artista, y solicit una plaza
en dicha escuela. Me aceptaron pero
tuve que rechazarla, ya que haba sido
aceptado en el departamento de Medios
Artsticos Medioambientales del Royal
College of Art de Londres. Estaba enamorado de alguien all, as que no pareca haber otra alternativa.
No me acuerdo bien de las exposiciones
que hizo Judd en la segunda dcada de
los setenta, pero mientras yo reflexionaba sobre su obra se convirti en un
artista importante. Las obras que empec a crear se relacionaban en gran parte
con temas que yo asociaba a su obra.
El concepto de integridad/totalidad,
por ejemplo, se convertira en uno de
los parmetros del arte, y en cierto momento comenc a producir obras que representaran esta idea. En aquella poca
esto implicaba empezar con una forma
y un material una cantidad de material
configurado en una forma determinada,
cuadrada o redonda, por ejemplo , y
restringir las acciones a los lmites de
dichas formas. Esto supona un reconocimiento de que lo real era importante
(como en Art of the Real), y de que la
obra de Judd se ocupaba de cuanto era
real. Sin embargo, yo no crea que lo
real fuera lo ms relevante. Las latas de
pintura o la enumeracin slo son interesantes si existe un discurso para el cual
sean interesantes. En parte debido a mi
creacin de una forma de escultura que
representa el plegar algo, y en parte debido al tema del discurso y significado,
las cuestiones sobre lo que hay dentro o
fuera, y sobre lo que se halla entre ambos, es decir, entre el interior y el exterior, se convirtieron hasta hoy en algo
esencial en mi obra. De la misma manera
Richard Deacon Judd-like
where they can be seen to be interesting. Partly to do with my developing a way of making akin to folding
something up, and partly to do with
the issue of meaning and of discourse,
some questions about the inside and
the outside of things and about what
lay between the inside and the outside became, and remain, important
to me. I also thought that, despite the
apparent austerity of Judds practice,
its consequences were never prescriptive but, rather, liberating, certainly
on the very fundamental question of
material, of what it was possible to
work with. The core of this liberation
seemed to be that material was allowed to retain, at a simple level, its
connectedness to the world and was
thus real. Meaning, however, was a
more difficult issue, whether in terms
of the experienced object or of the
experiencing subject. I thought that
Judds empiricism, whilst empowering, at the same time disenfranchised
the subject.
In 1984 I met Donald Judd for the first
time, in the context of an exhibition at
Merian Park in Basel, Switzerland. I
was a surprising inclusion in this exhibition, titled Sculpture In The 20th
Century, awed to find myself in company with artists whose work meant a
lot to me. Judd showed a very large,
multicoloured enamelled aluminium
piece. On being introduced, I said
what a pleasure it was to meet him
and said something about the work,
to which he replied Its brand new.
This is puzzling, but something that I
heard him say on other occasions. It
either means that it is a new kind of
thing or, intriguingly Warholian in its
connotations, that it was one of a new
range, a new kind of product.
Toward the end of the 80s I heard
Judd give a slide talk at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. It was curious, the images were fairly consistently badIve likened them to the
kinds of slides beginning art students
takeand seemed to emphasise that
the photograph did not represent
the work, that what you saw, in this
case, was not what you got. At the
same time one of the slides presented
a view of the studio with a full-scale
mock-up for the installation of Judds
exhibition in the National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa, in 1975. This struck
me as equally important, since there
was considerable effort involved in
making a trial installation of that sort
and that, therefore, important issues
about the relationship between the
works and between the works and
the space were being established.
He spoke a lot about Marfa, about
the restoration of the buildings, the

use of adobe in the courtyard wall
of the studio block, the beds, tables
and chairs, the beginnings of the installation in the artillery sheds, the
installations of works by Flavin and
Chamberlain. It was interesting, and
fulsomely generous, yet at the same
time faintly disturbing p articularly
in relation to the domestic arrangements. Thinking about this much later,
I recalled a description I had read
of the upbringing of the princesses
Elizabeth and Margaret who, under
the eye of a strict governess, were instructed to line everything up, clothes
folded, shoes together at right angles
to the bed, cover turned back, etc.,
before going to bed at night. There
was an implication that Elizabeths
willingness to go along with the arrangements might suggest an apparent emotional frigidity as a defense
whilst Margarets inability to conform
predicated an emotionally troubled
life. The point being that obsessive
ordering is not emotionally neutral. I
also recognize that the collecting together and ordering of like with like
has a fascination for me, the continual re-ordering of my boyhood stamp
collection standing proof. Perhaps the
most curious slide in this Whitechapel
lecture was a picture of a mass grave
in what was then Leningrad, now St.
Petersburg, a barely marked rectangular mound in which were interred
some of the two million dead from the
terrible siege of that city. The implicit
demonstrative restraint obviously mattered a great deal to Judd.
My last direct contact with Judd was
in 1992, when I was again in an
exhibition with him, this time in the
pensaba que pese a la austeridad del

arte de Judd, sus productos no eran normativos, sino ms bien liberadores, sobre todo en la cuestin fundamental del
material, de aquello con lo que se poda
trabajar. La esencia de esta liberacin
pareca ser que al material se le permita
retener a un nivel simple su conexin con
el mundo, y entonces era real. El significado era un tema ms complejo, ya
fuera desde el punto de vista del objeto o
desde la perspectiva del sujeto. Para m,
el empirismo de Judd, aun poderoso, al
mismo tiempo desautorizaba al sujeto.
En 1984 conoc a Donald Judd en una
muestra en el Merian Park de Basilea
(Suiza). Para m fue una grata sorpresa
ser incluido en ella; se titulaba Sculpture
in the 20th Century, estaba impresionado y encantado a la vez por encontrarme en compaa de artistas cuyo trabajo
tanto admiraba. Judd exhibi una enorme pieza de aluminio multicolor esmaltada. Al ser presentados, le expres mi
placer en conocerle y le coment algo
sobre la obra, a lo que me respondi: Es
nueva. Es una contestacin desconcertante, pero se la he odo decir en otras
ocasiones. Puede significar que se trata
de una cosa nueva o, curiosamente warholiano en sus connotaciones, que era
una pieza nueva de una serie, un nuevo
tipo de producto.
Hacia finales de los ochenta fui a una
conferencia con diapositivas que imparta Judd en la Whitechapel Art Galler y
de Londres. Result curiosa, ya que
las imgenes eran en general bastante malas las he comparado a las que
toman los estudiantes de arte noveles ,
parecan subrayar la idea de que la fotografa no representaba a la obra, que
lo que estabas viendo, en este caso, no
era realmente lo que haba. Al mismo
53
tiempo, una de las diapositivas exhiba

una vista de su estudio con una maqueta
a escala real de la instalacin que Judd
present en la muestra del museo nacional de Ottawa, Canad, en 1975. Esto
me pareci importante, pues costaba
bastante esfuerzo realizar una maqueta
de una instalacin de ese tipo, lo cual,
planteaba bastantes preguntas sobre la
relacin entre las obras en s y entre las
obras y el espacio. Habl largamente
sobre Marfa, sobre la restauracin de
los edificios, el empleo de adobe para
la pared del patio del bloque donde se
encontraba el estudio, las camas, las sillas y mesas, el inicio de la instalacin
en las naves de artillera, las instalaciones de Flavin y Chamberlain. Resultaba
interesante y enormemente generoso,
a la vez ligeramente inquietante en lo
que respectaba a la ordenacin domstica. Al pensar en ello mucho ms tarde,
me vino a la memoria una descripcin
que haba ledo de la educacin de las
princesas Elizabeth y Margaret, quienes
aprendan bajo la atenta mirada de una
estricta institutriz a ordenar todas las
cosas antes de acostarse; doblar perfectamente la ropa, colocar los zapatos
emparejados en ngulo recto con respecto a la cama, la cubierta bien doblada, etc. Se deduca de ah que la buena
disposicin de Elizabeth a seguir estos
preparativos diarios poda sugerir una
cierta frigidez emocional, mientras que
la incapacidad de Margaret de aceptar
estas rutinas indicaba una vida emocional tumultuosa. El argumento era
que la ordenacin obsesiva no es una
caracterstica emocionalmente neutral.
Por mi parte, reconozco que el recoger
y ordenar los objetos iguales ejerce una
gran fascinacin sobre m, el continuo
reorganizar mi coleccin de sellos en la
Richard Deacon Judd-like
region around Stuttgart in Germany.

Organised by the curators Veit Grner and Rudi Fuchs, the exhibition,
Platzverfuhring, associated each of
some twenty artists with one of the
satellite communities of Stuttgart. A
budget had been set aside by the regional authority for cultural activities
in a failed Olympic bid and remained
available. The mayors of the various
communities collectively insisted, on
behalf of their taxpayers, that the
pot of money be spent in the regions
rather than in the urban centre. Each
invited artist developed some sort of
relationship with their host community
and many of the resulting works had
a strong relationship to particular
sites. Judds work was in the small
town of Gerlingen, I worked nearby,
in Waiblingen, alongside Niele Toroni. For a visitor, the exhibition was
difficult and finding all of the localities
involved next to impossible. I suspect
very few people outside of Gerlingen
saw Judds work. He was already ill
and this was one of his last installed
projects. The proposal involved significantly altering the form and grading of the town square, correcting
the space. The exhibited work consisted of this proposal mocked up at
full scale in plywood on the site, there
not being sufficient funds to execute
it as a permanent work. It was different from anything else I saw by him,
perhaps the beginning of an attempt
to reconcile how he saw things with
facts on the ground. His writing at the
time evidenced a severe disillusionment with the qualities of contemporary urban space:
adolescencia sigue siendo la prueba ms

clara. Posiblemente, la diapositiva ms
curiosa de la conferencia en la Whitechapel fuera una fotografa de una fosa
comn en lo que era en aquel entonces
Leningrado, ahora San Petersburgo, un
tmulo apenas marcado donde fueron
enterrados algunos de los dos millones
de muertos en el terrible sitio a aquella
ciudad. La contencin demostrativa implcita en la fotografa era obviamente
uno de los temas principales para Judd.
Mi ltimo contacto directo con Judd fue
en 1992, en otra muestra en la que trabajamos juntos, esta vez en Alemania,
en la regin de Stuttgart. En la exposicin titulada Platzverfuhring, organizada por los curadores Veit Corner
y Rudi Fuchs, se asociaba a cada uno
de los ms o menos veinte artistas con
una comunidad satlite de dicha regin.
De una apuesta olmpica fallida qued
un dinero disponible y los alcaldes de
varios municipios insistieron en destinar
ese presupuesto, en beneficio de los contribuyentes, a actividades culturales en
provincias y no en los centros urbanos.
Cada artista invitado entabl ciertas relaciones con su comunidad anfitriona y
muchas de las obras resultantes tenan
fuertes vnculos con lugares concretos.
La pieza de Judd se ubicaba en el pueblito de Gerlingen, la ma en un pueblo
cercano llamado Waiblingen, contiguo
a Niele Toroni. Para un espectador resultaba una muestra difcil, a veces era
imposible encontrar las localidades en
las que se exhiban las obras. Sospecho
que muy poca gente de fuera de Gerlingen pudo ver la obra de Judd. En aquella
muestra l ya estaba enfermo y ste fue
uno de sus ltimos proyectos instalados.
Su propuesta entraaba una importante
Small buildings should be symmetrical and the plan for an area

of the city should be as well. Buildings in a city should also be symmetrical from top to bottom, on the
street and on the skyline, and not
snaggle-toothed like New York.
[On Symmetry, 1985.]
alteracin de la forma y gradacin de

la plaza del pueblo, corrigiendo el
espacio, por as decirlo. La obra consista en una maqueta de esta propuesta a
escala natural, hecha en madera contrachapada y ubicada en la plaza, no
haba suficiente dinero para ejecutarla
como obra permanente. Era diferente a
todo lo que yo haba visto de Judd has-
within the capacity of one person or of a small group, the relationship of all visible things should
be considered. [Art & Architecture, 1987.]
ta el momento, a lo mejor representaba

el principio de su intento de reconciliar
su visin de las cosas con la realidad
del terreno. Una declaracin suya del
works. The ostensible motifs of these

early paintings are unprepossessing,
banal interiors and nondescript street
scenes e ntrances, bridges, paths,
bleak gardens, stairwells. They have
something in common with Rothkos
early subway paintings, representations of fairly compressed spaces
in a muted palette. These motifs are
repeated in successive paintings,
the detail progressively reduced until there is a kind of equality across
momento evidenciaba su profundo desencanto con las cualidades del espacio
In 2002 I had an experience that I

can only describe as epiphanic. This
was Thomas Kelleins exhibition Donald Judd, Early Work 19551968 at
the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, again in Germany. Installed in the Philip Johnson
building that is the Kunsthalle, it was
breathtaking. The exhibition comprised thirty paintings, twenty drawings, eight objects and eight larger
contemporneo:
Los edificios pequeos deberan ser
simtricos y el plan de construccin
de una zona de la ciudad tambin
debera serlo. Los edificios de una
ciudad deberan ser simtricos de
arriba abajo, desde la calle hasta
el cielo, no desalineados como los
de Nueva York. On Symmetry, 1985.
54
en el espacio que ocupa una persona o un grupo pequeo debera

considerarse la relacin entre todas
las cosas visibles. Art and Architecture, 1987.
En 2002 tuve una experiencia que slo
puedo describir como epifnica. Fue en
la muestra de Thomas Kellein Donald
Judd, Early Work 1955 1968, celebrada en la Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Alemania
de nuevo. Instalada en el edificio de Phi-
the picture, the framing character of

a motif and the space between being
equally valued, equally solid or equally empty. A concrete bridge spanning
a park segues into a band and then
into the bent tube connecting two
painted panels. An early relief painting (1961), a black painting with an
inserted baking tray, belonging to the
Museum of Modern Art in New York,
has a folded object, which encloses a
space, framed within a textured black
surround. This surround is read as a

wall, situated in space, fenestrated
by the partially reflective folds of the
baking tray, which it compresses,
holds, and dematerializes. Yet at
the same time the textured black is
empty, a space or an absence, lacking surface. The object within this is
there, present, plain to see. The value
that Judd extracts from these humble
early paintings and drawings and
from the subsequent reliefs is quite
lip Johnson que alberga la Kunsthalle,

su vista era imponente. La exposicin
consista en treinta pinturas, veinte
dibujos, ocho objetos y ocho obras de
mayor tamao. Los motivos evidentes de
aquellas pinturas tempranas son poco
atrayentes: interiores banales y escenas
callejeras corrientes entradas, puentes,
caminos, jardines desolados, huecos de
escaleras. Tienen algo en comn con los
primeros cuadros del metro de Rothko,
representaciones de espacios compri55
midos en una paleta de colores mudos.

Estos motivos se repiten en pinturas sucesivas, en las que los detalles se van
reduciendo progresivamente hasta que
se llega a una especie de igualdad en el
cuadro y el carcter enmarcador de un
elemento, as como el espacio que crea,
se valoran del mismo modo, igualmente
slidos, igualmente vacos. Por ejemplo,
un puente de cemento sobre el parque se
dirige a la franja y sigue hasta el tubo
doblado que conecta los dos paneles pin-
extraordinary. There is no revelatory

vision, no laying bare of transience
but a progressive, insistent assertion
that object and space are coincidental, equal and important, that this is
how the world is. The world is not
pushed away or schematized but is
solidly in front of us, factual. I had
completely misunderstood, thinking
that geometry was a kind of idealisation s ystematisation or purity a s
it is in Constructivist art, from which
Judds work was generated. The reverse is true, geometry is a fact, not
a schema.
abandoned military buildings around

Marfa into spaces where he could
make permanent installations of his
works (and of some of his friends).
His reason was that he thought the
clarity of light and space were particularly special, but I think he also liked
the idea of people having to travel
out here. The work is very strict and
geometric, beautifully finished. The
ambition involved is awesome a s
if there was a way the world could
be made good by a bit of reorderingthough the standard strategy of
like to like and of variation within a
typology under strict parameters betrays perhaps a rather unsatisfactory
vision of the way the world is. It can
seem absurd in relation to a barbecue or chicken coop, yet at the same
time the 100 milled aluminium boxes
that form the last work, protected in
two special sheds c onverted and
re-roofed artillery storesare wholly
transcendent in their quality. The surfaces fluctuate between material and
immaterial, incredible complexity
builds up and subsides as you move
around the boxes and they seem to
capture and dispel light. They have
sharp and diffuse dark spaces and
seem to appear and disappear. There
are 48 of them in one shed, 52 in the
second, and this difference leads to
changes in disposition and balance
between two ostensibly similar places. It is wonderful.
Juddlike.
tados. Asimismo, hay un cuadro en relieve antiguo, de 1961, que pertenece a la

coleccin del Museo de Arte Moderno de
Nueva York. Se trata de una pintura negra con una bandeja de horno insertada;
es decir, un objeto plegado que enclaustra un espacio enmarcado en un entorno
negro dotado de textura. Este entorno se
entiende como una pared situada en el
espacio, encerrada por los pliegues parcialmente reflectantes de la bandeja a la
cual comprime, sujeta y desmaterializa.
Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo el negro
texturizado est vaco, es un espacio,
una ausencia que carece de superficie. El
objeto dentro est ah presente, resulta
Marfa, Texas,
Oct 26 2004
fcil de ver. El valor que extrae el artista

de estos humildes primeros cuadros, de
los dibujos y siguientes relieves es asom-
Dear Alice,
Im sitting waiting for breakfast in a
diner decorated with plastic chillies
and a couple of murals of the Texas
war against Mexico and a map of
the Big Bend on the Rio Grande.
There is also a board with a collection of different barbed wire strands.
As I walked in someone wearing an
enormous cowboy hat walked out.
The town Im in, Marfa, is three hours
drive from the nearest airport. At
first the drive was across flat desert,
then slowly up into hills and mountains, then out onto the flat, high
plain. There were a few cactuses
and gates barring the entrances to
long drives, each with the names of
ranches written above themBar Z,
Lazy Tthat sort of stuff. The road up
onto the plain passes some fantastic
columns and cliffs of rock. Im here to
look at sculptures by an artist called
Donald Judd, who spent the last years
of his life buying and converting
broso. No hay una visin reveladora ni

se descubre la transitoriedad, sino una
afirmacin progresiva, insistente, de
que el objeto y el espacio son coincidentes, iguales e importantes, como es el
mundo. El mundo no est apartado de
la obra, o esquematizado, sino que est
ante nosotros, slido y real. Yo estaba
completamente equivocado, al creer que
la geometra era una suerte de idealizacin sistematizacin o pureza como lo
es en el Constructivismo, movimiento del
cual el arte de Judd se gener. Lo contrario es cierto, la geometra es un hecho,
no un esquema.
Marfa, Texas
26102004
tabln sobre el que cuelga una serie de

distintos cables elctricos. Cuando entr, alguien con un enorme sombrero
de cowboy sala. La ciudad en la que
me encuentro, Marfa, est a tres horas
en coche del aeropuerto. Al principio la
carretera es un desierto llano, y despus
una suave pendiente hasta las colinas
y montaas que acaba en un altiplano.
Haba unos pocos cactus y puertas que
impedan el paso a los coches, cada una
con los nombres de los ranchos escritos
en ellas Bar Z, Lazy T, todo este tipo
de nombres. La carretera que asciende
a la llanura pasa por columnas fantsticas y acantilados rocosos. He venido
hasta aqu a admirar las esculturas de un
artista llamado Donald Judd, que pas
los ltimos aos de su vida comprando y
convirtiendo edificios militares abandonados alrededor de Marfa en espacios
donde poder instalar sus obras de modo
permanente (y las de algunos de sus amigos). La razn fue que para l la claridad
de la luz y del espacio era especial, pero
yo creo que tambin le agradaba la idea
de que la gente tuviera que viajar aqu
para verlas. La obra es muy estricta y
geomtrica, con muy bellos acabados.
Pero adems implica una extraordinaria ambicin como si existiera una
forma de hacer bueno al mundo con la
reorganizacin del mismo aun cuando
la estrategia tpica de igual con igual y
de la variacin dentro de una tipologa
regida por parmetros estrictos delata,
quizs, una visin poco satisfactoria de
la manera en que el mundo es realmente. Si lo comparamos a una barbacoa
Querida Alice:
Richard Deacon 20052008
Estoy sentado esperando el desayuno en

un restaurante decorado con chiles de
o a un corral de pollos, puede parecer

absurdo, pero a la vez, las cien cajas de
plstico, un par de murales de la guerra
A version of this essay was first given as a talk in
aluminio pulido que componen la ltima
entre Mxico y Texas y un mapa del Gran
the Artists On Art series at the Dia Center for
obra, resguardadas en dos cobertizos
Recodo de Ro Grande. Hay tambin un
the Arts, New York in February 2005.
especiales almacenes de artillera

reformados con tejado nuevo poseen
una calidad trascendente. Las superficies fluctan entre el estado material e
inmaterial, una increble complejidad es
creada para luego decrecer, al moverte
por las cajas y ver la luz que captan y
despiden. En ellas hay zonas oscuras,
angulosas, difusas y da la impresin de
que aparecen y desaparecen. Hay cuarenta y ocho en una nave, cincuenta y
dos en la otra, y esta diferencia lleva
a cambiar la disposicin y el equilibrio
entre dos lugares claramente similares.
Es maravillosa.
Al estilo de Judd.
Richard Deacon 20052008
Una versin de este ensayo fue presentada primero como charla en la serie "Los artistas hablan
del arte", en el Centro de Arte Dia, de Nueva
York, en febrero de 2005.
56
L o n n Tay l o r
F O R T D. A . R U S S E L L ,
MARFA
E L F U E RT E D . A . R U S S E L L , D E M A R FA
Grande, trying to prevent illegal shipments of guns and ammunition from

Texas across the river to the revolutionists who were about to unseat
Porfirio Diaz, long-time president of
Mexico.
That temporary home became the
nerve center for the armys efforts to
control the turmoil along the border
created by the Mexican Revolution.
By the 1920s the tents had been
replaced by the last large cavalry
post built in the United States, a post
whose presence made Marfa into an
army town, with nearly half a million military dollars a year flowing
into the local economy; in 1930 the
post was promoted from a camp
to a fort and re-named Fort D.A.
El 29 de enero de 1911, cien oficiales y

elementos de las Tropas F y H del Tercer
Regimiento de Caballera descendieron
de los vagones de ferrocarril en Marfa,
Texas, bajaron sus caballos de los furgones de carga y armaron sus tiendas
de campaa al sur de las vas del tren.
Ninguno de aquellos hombres comprendi entonces que fundaban un puesto
militar que permanecera aqu durante
35 aos y que acabara por convertirse
en el Fuerte D.A. Russell. No se podran
imaginar que dicha instalacin llegara
a ser un centro de arte reconocido a nivel internacional. Estos soldados y sus
comandantes consideraban que el Campamento Marfa, segn ellos lo denominaban, sera su sede temporal y base de
abastecimiento mientras patrullaban el
rea al norte del Ro Grande, en su intento de impedir el cruce de armas y municiones destinadas a los revolucionarios
mexicanos que luchaban para derrocar
al presidente Porfirio Daz.
Esa base temporal se convirti en el centro de operaciones del Ejrcito para controlar el desorden en la regin fronteriza
creado por la Revolucin Mexicana. A
partir de 1920, las tiendas de campaa
haban sido remplazadas por el ltimo
puesto de caballera importante construido en Estados Unidos, cambiando a
Marfa en un pueblo militar, con una inyeccin de casi medio milln de dlares
a la economa local. En 1930, el puesto
ya no era un campamento, sino un fuerte
militar que llevaba el nombre de D.A.
Russell. En 1933, durante los aos ms
Po st H ea d qu a rte rs, Fort D . A . Ru ssell , T exa s, w ith T r oo p B arr a c ks i n B a ckg ro un d.
On January 29, 1911 one hundred

officers and men of Troops F and H
of the Third Cavalry climbed down
from railroad passenger coaches in
Marfa, Texas, unloaded their horses
from box cars, and set up their tents
south of the railroad tracks. None
of those men knew that they were
founding a military post that would
be here for the next thirty-five years
and would eventually become Fort
D.A. Russell. They could never have
imagined that a hundred years later
that post would be an internationally
known art center. Those troopers and
their officers regarded Camp Marfa,
as they called it, as their temporary
home and supply base while they
patrolled the Texas side of the Rio
57
Lonn Taylor El Fuerte D.A. Russell, de Marfa
Russell. In 1933, in the depths of the

Depression, the army closed the fort
as an economy measure, but it was
reopened two years later. During
World War II it played a dual role
as a training base for regiments going overseas and as a prisoner of
war camp for captured German soldiers. The fort was decommissioned
and closed in 1946. This afternoon
I am going to try to give you a few
highlights of its history and tell you a
little about what life was like for the
officers and men stationed here during the posts heyday.
Fort D.A. Russell is here because
there was a revolution in Mexico
in 1910. I do not intend to try to explain the complexities of the Mexican
Revolution, or we would be here un-
difciles de la Gran Depresin, el Ejrcito
til dark without ever getting to Fort

D.A. Russell. But in an oversimplified
nutshell, here is what happened that
first brought troops back to Marfa
and then kept them here through the
1920s. The exercise will be relatively
painless; you will only need to remember five names and you already know
one of them.
In 1910 Porfirio Diaz had been president of Mexico for thirty years and
had allowed no opposition. That year
he announced that he would permit
an opponent to run against him. Francisco Madero, a wealthy Chihuahua
landowner, announced his candidacy. Diaz changed his mind and threw
Madero in jail. Madero escaped,
came to San Antonio, Texas, and
raised a successful revolution against
Diaz, overthrowing him and becoming president himself in 1911. Madero
stayed in office until 1913, when the
muy somera, repasemos las razones por
cerr el fuerte por motivos econmicos,

pero volvieron a abrirlo dos aos ms
tarde. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, funcion como base de entrenamiento para soldados destinados a combate en el extranjero y tambin como
campamento para prisioneros de guerra
alemanes. El fuerte fue clausurado definitivamente en 1946. Esta tarde les voy
a presentar algunos hechos importantes
de la historia del lugar y describirles la
vida diaria que llevaban sus oficiales y
soldados durante la poca de su apogeo.
El Fuerte D.A. Russell debe su existencia a la Revolucin Mexicana de 1910.
No me propongo elucidar aqu las complejidades de este fenmeno histrico,
porque si lo intentara nunca llegaramos
al tema que nos ocupa. Pero de manera
las que las tropas regresaron a Marfa

y se quedaron aqu hasta finales de los
aos veintes. Ser un ejercicio relativamente fcil, ya que slo es necesario recordar cinco nombres, de los cuales ya
conocen al menos uno.
En 1910, Porfirio Daz llevaba ya 30
aos como presidente de Mxico, sin
tolerar oposicin alguna. En dicho
ao, el mandatario afirm que podra
postularse otro candidato, y Francisco
Madero, un acaudalado terrateniente
chihuahuense, le tom la palabra. Pero
Daz cambi de parecer y orden el encarcelamiento de su rival. Madero, sin
embargo, escap y se dirigi a San Antonio, donde organiz una revolucin en
contra de Daz, derrocndolo y asumiendo la presidencia l mismo en 1911. En
1913, el comandante en jefe del Ejrcito
mexicano, Victoriano Huerta, depuso a
Madero y lo mand asesinar. Huerta era
58
commander-in-chief of the Mexican

army, Victoriano Huerta, overthrew
him, murdered him, and placed himself in office. Huerta was a particularly nasty piece of work who wore little
purple-tinted rimless glasses. When
he had Madero assassinated, all hell
broke loose and half a dozen leaders emerged with armies to oppose
him. The two that concern us were
Venustiano Carranza and Pancho
Villa that is the one whose name
you know. Carranza proclaimed himself First Chief of the Constitutionalist
Revolution and by August 1914 he
and his allies had forced Huerta out
of office and into exile. The allies then
started squabbling among themselves
over the presidency and for several
years their armies fought each other
un tipo de muy malas pulgas que acos-
across Mexico, with Carranza in the

lead and Villa a close second most of
the time. In the fall of 1915 the United
States recognized Carranzas government as the legitimate government
of Mexico. This infuriated Villa, who
retaliated the next spring with a raid
on Columbus, New Mexico in which
twenty American citizens were killed.
More raids across the border by both
Carrancistas and Villistas followed in
Texas, and those kept the army in the
Big Bend busy until the political situation in Mexico stabilized somewhat
in 1920.
I said that the army originally came
to Marfa in 1911 to try to control arms
smuggling from Texas into Mexico.
Let me explain that. When the Madero revolution broke out, every storekeeper in the Big Bend became an
arms merchant. Their merchandise
was smuggled across the Rio Grande
Columbus, Nuevo Mxico, un ataque
tumbraba usar lentes de tinte morado sin

armazn. Tras el asesinato de Madero
se desat la tormenta, y salieron varios
lderes con sus ejrcitos listos para derribarlo. Los dos que nos interesan son
Venustiano Carranza y Pancho Villa.
Carranza se proclam Primer Jefe de
la Revolucin Constitucionalista y, para
agosto de 1914, junto con sus aliados,
haba obligado a Huerta a huir al exilio,
dejando a los responsables de su derrota
que se pelearan entre s por la presidencia en combates en varios puntos del
pas durante muchos aos, destacndose Carranza y, en segundo trmino,
Pancho Villa. En otoo de 1915 Estados
Unidos reconoci a Carranza como el legtimo gobernante, y el enfurecido Villa
invadi el territorio estadounidense en
que ocasion la muerte de 20 ciudadanos norteamericanos. Siguieron ms

incursiones a Texas por carrancistas y
villistas, y stas requirieron la intervencin de fuerzas armadas destacadas en
la zona tejana de Big Bend hasta que la
situacin poltica en Mxico comenz a
estabilizarse en 1920.
Mencion anteriormente que el Ejrcito
de Estados Unidos vino primero a Marfa
en 1911 para controlar el contrabando
de armas entre Texas y Mxico. Ahora
quiero explicarme. Cuando estall la Revolucin de Madero, todos los tenderos
de la regin de Big Bend se convirtieron
en mercaderes de armas. El trfico en
armas que cruzaban el Ro Grande violaba la ley federal, en concreto la Ley
de Neutralidad de 1794, que prohiba
a toda persona en territorio estadounidense hacer guerra contra cualquier
gobierno con el que Estados Unidos
Lonn Taylor Fort D.A. Russell, Marfa
in violation of federal law, specifically the Neutrality Act of 1794, which

makes it illegal for anyone on American soil to make war on any government at peace with the United States.
Since the Border Patrol had not yet
been established, the army was the
only enforcement agency the federal
government had.
The arms and ammunition the local merchants sold was purchased
wholesale from El Paso hardware
companies, which sold munitions like
hotcakes all through the Mexican Revolution. Between September 1911 and
September 1912 the Shelton-Payne
Hardware company there, which
normally dealt in pistols and hunting
rifles, sold 40,000 Springfield military rifles, two million cartridges, and
mantena relaciones de paz. Como no
four machine guns, all of which went

illegally to Mexico.
Here is how they got there. The revolutionists would steal a herd of cattle
from a hacienda in Mexico, drive
them across the Rio Grande, and sell
them to a Big Bend rancher for five or
six dollars a head. The rancher would
give them an order on his local store
for the money and the revolutionists
would go to that store and collect
what was due to them in guns and
ammunition, deliverable in Mexico.
The storeowner would then hire some
local man to take the weapons across
the river. This was a violation of the
law in two ways. The ranchers were
buying imported cattle without paying the duty on them, and the merchants and their delivery boys were
violating the Neutrality Act.
Now although the army was originally sent here to curtail the arms
el Ro Grande con l, y vendan las re-
exista todava la Patrulla Fronteriza, el

Ejrcito era el nico mecanismo con que
contaba el gobierno federal para hacer
cumplir dicha ley.
Las armas y municiones que vendan
los mercaderes locales eran compradas
al mayoreo a empresas de El Paso, las
cuales vendan estos artculos como pan
caliente durante toda la Revolucin. De
septiembre de 1911 a septiembre de
1912, la ferretera SheltonPayne de El
Paso, que normalmente trataba en pistolas y escopetas de caza, vendi 40,000
rifles militares Springfield, 2 millones de
cartuchos y 4 ametralladoras, todos enviados ilegalmente a Mxico.
Y cmo llegaron hasta all? Pues, los
revolucionarios robaban ganado de
En enero de 1914, a slo tres aos de
foot in a twelve-mile-long column that

marched up the Casa Piedra Road,
taking four days to get here. Daily rations consisting of 2,500 pounds of
beans, 2,500 pounds of flour, 500
pounds of sugar, and 250 pounds of
coffee were hauled by wagon from
here to each nights campsite. When
they got here, the Mexican soldiers
and civilians were held under guard
for several days before special trains
took them to an internment camp at
Fort Bliss in El Paso.
Two years later, on May 5, 1916, a
mounted group of sixty Mexicans
crossed the Rio Grande and swept
down on the little community of Glenn
Springs, Texas, now in Big Bend National Park, where there was a candelilla wax plant, a general store,
and a U.S. army outpost manned by
a cavalry sergeant and six troopers.
The Mexicans rode into town about
Marfa a los lugares donde vivaquea-
la fundacin del Campamento Marfa, el

ejrcito de Pancho Villa se apoder de la
ciudad de Ojinaga, Chihuahua, echando
fuera a las fuerzas federales de Victoriano Huerta. Los federales, en total unos
2,500, huyeron a Presidio, al otro lado
del ro, acompaados de 1,500 refugiados civiles y 1,200 caballos y mulas.
Soldados norteamericanos se hicieron
cargo de los refugiados mexicanos en
Presidio, y los llevaron al Campamento Marfa caminando o montados en los
caballos y las mulas, en una columna
de 12 millas de largo que tard cuatro
das para llegar a Marfa por el Camino
Casa Piedra. Raciones de 2,500 libras
de frijoles, 2,500 libras de harina, 500
libras de azcar y 250 libras de caf
eran transportadas diariamente desde
Fr a n k D u nca n.
una hacienda en Mxico, atravesaban
smuggling, they quickly got involved

in more complicated issues. I want to
describe two events that will give you
some idea of what the men stationed
here at Camp Marfa faced during the
very early years of the post.
In January 1914, just three years after Camp Marfa was established,
Pancho Villas army took the city of
Ojinaga, Chihuahua from the Federal
forces of Victoriano Huerta and started shooting Federalists. The Federal
army of 2,500 men fled across the river to Presidio, accompanied by 1,500
civilian refugees and 1,200 horses
and mules. The Mexican soldiers and
the refugees were taken in charge by
the U.S. troops stationed in Presidio
and were escorted here to Camp
Marfa on horseback, muleback, and
ses a rancheros del Big Bend por cinco

o seis dlares cada una. Los rancheros
les giraban vales que los revolucionarios
podan hacer efectivos en una tienda local, donde stos los cobraban en armas
y municiones, a entregarse en Mxico.
El tendero local luego contrataba a otras
personas para transportar la mercanca
al otro lado del ro. As, se violaba la
ley de dos maneras: los rancheros compraban ganado importado sin pagar el
impuesto reglamentario, y los mercaderes y sus agentes infringan la Ley de
Neutralidad.
Aunque el Ejrcito lleg aqu primero
con la finalidad de prevenir el contrabando de armas, pronto se involucraron
en otros asuntos ms complicados. Quiero mencionar dos casos que les darn
una idea de las actividades de los soldados del Campamento Marfa durante sus
primeros aos.
59
ban los viajantes cada noche. Al llegar

a Marfa, los soldados y civiles mexicanos fueron apresados y detenidos bajo
guardia durante varios das antes de ser
trasladados en tren a un campamento
de internamiento ubicado en el Fuerte
Bliss de El Paso.
Dos aos ms tarde, el 5 de mayo de
1916, un bando de 60 mexicanos cruz el Ro Grande y descendi sobre la
pequea comunidad de Glenn Springs,
Texas, situada ahora en el Parque Nacional Big Bend, donde haba una fbrica de cera de candelilla, una tienda
general y un destacamento del Ejrcito
Estadounidense consistente en un sargento de caballera y seis soldados. Los
mexicanos irrumpieron en el pueblito a
medianoche, disparando sobre todas las
casas y matando a un nio de 7 aos,
Tommy Compton. Los soldados, parapetados en una choza de adobe con techo
midnight, firing into every house and

killing a seven-year-old boy, Tommy
Compton. The soldiers, barricaded
in an adobe hut with a roof made of
sotol stalks, fired back until the attackers set the roof on fire, and then the
soldiers had to run for it. Three were
killed; the others escaped into the
night. The Mexicans then looted the
general store, which was evidently
their target, and disappeared into
the dark.
That same night a second party of
Mexicans looted the general store
at Boquillas, Texas, kidnapping the
storekeeper, Jesse Deemer, and his
assistant, Monroe Payne. They joined
up with the Glenn Springs raiders and
splashed across the river back into
Mexico, taking Deemer and Payne
with them. Three days later Major

George T. Langhorne with two troops
of the 8 th Cavalry crossed the Rio
Grande in pursuit of the bandits. The
expedition was partially motorized;
it included two Fords loaded with correspondents and photographers and
Langhornes chauffeur-driven Cadillac. They penetrated 100 miles into
Mexico and found Deemer and Payne
alive in the village of El Pino, Coahuila, where the bandits had abandoned
them. Langhornes men remained in
Mexico for fourteen days before returning to Camp Marfa.
The raids on Glenn Springs and Boquillas transformed Camp Marfa into
the headquarters of a huge military
operation. President Wilson called
up the National Guards of Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona and sent
them to the Big Bend, along with two
battalions of Pennsylvania National
de sotol, devolvieron el fuego hasta que

los atacantes prendieron fuego al techo,
obligando a los ocupantes a huir. Tres
de ellos perdieron la vida; los otros escaparon. Los mexicanos se dedicaron
entonces a saquear la tienda general;
luego desaparecieron.
Esa misma noche, un segundo bando de
mexicanos saque la tienda general de
Boquillas, Texas y secuestraron al propietario, Jesse Deemer, y a su asistente,
Monroe Payne. Ambos bandos de saqueadores se unieron y cruzaron el ro
de nuevo, regresando a Mxico con los
dos plagiados. A los tres das, el Mayor
George T. Langhorne, junto con dos tropas del 8 Regimiento de Caballera a su
cargo, cruzaron el Ro Grande en busca
de los bandidos. La expedicin inclua
vehculos motorizados: dos automvi-
les Ford tripulados por corresponsales

y fotgrafos, y el Cadillac de Langhorne, conducido por su chofer. Penetraron
unas 100 millas en territorio mexicano,
donde encontraron a Deemer y Payne
vivos en el pueblo de El Pino, Coahuila, donde los secuestradores los haban
abandonado. Los hombres de Langhorne
permanecieron en Mxico 14 das antes
de regresar al Campamento Marfa.
Las incursiones en Glenn Springs y Boquillas transformaron al Campamento Marfa en el cuartel general de una
operacin militar a gran escala. El Presidente Woodrow Wilson moviliz a las
Guardias Nacionales de Texas, Nuevo
Mxico y Arizona, envindolas al Big
Bend, junto con dos batallones de la
Guardia Nacional de Pensilvania, un
regimiento de caballera federal y una
unidad de soldados de infantera, todos
acuartelados en el Campamento Marfa.
El Ejrcito estableci 12 puestos suple60
Guardsmen, the 6 th U.S. Cavalry,

and the 34th U.S. Infantry. All of these
were headquartered at Camp Marfa.
The army established twelve subposts
along the Rio Grande from Lajitas to
Candelaria, all of which were supplied from Camp Marfa through an
elaborate system of wagon trains and
pack mules. Supplies were shipped
from El Paso and San Antonio to
Camp Marfa by railroad, unloaded
here, and then transhipped to the outposts. The wagon trains consisted of
twenty-eight army wagons drawn by
six mules each; sometimes the wagons were hitched together in groups
of fourteen and pulled by steam traction engines. But some subposts were
so remote that they could only be
reached by mule trains. A mule train
mentarios a lo largo del Ro Grande, des-
consisted of sixty-four mules, fifty of

which carried cargo and fourteen of
which were the mounts of the packers, the cook, and the blacksmith.
Each mule was loaded with two hundred and fifty pounds of cargo. The
mule train trip to Lajitas, the most remote outpost, took three days, with
overnight camps at Casa Piedra and
in Fresno Canyon.
In spite of the massive troop presence, raids across the Rio Grande
continued through 1916, 1917, and
1918. They included raids in which
people were killed on the Brite Ranch
and the Neville Ranch, followed by
bloody reprisals on local Mexicans
by civilians and by the Texas Rangers.
In June 1919, the 11th Aero Squadron,
five De Havilland DH.4 biplanes under the command of Major Edgar Tobin of San Antonio, was sent to Camp
Marfa to aid in patrolling the border.
tres das, con escalas para pernoctar en
de Lajitas a Candelaria, todos los cuales

eran abastecidos desde el Campamento
Marfa mediante un complejo sistema de
caravanas de carromatos y mulas de
carga. Los vveres eran transportados
desde El Paso y San Antonio a Marfa por
ferrocarril y de all a los puestos ms
remotos. Las caravanas consistan en 28
carromatos tirados por seis mulas cada
uno; a veces se enganchaban los carromatos en grupos de 14 para ser tirados
por locomotoras a vapor. Algunos de los
puestos eran tan remotos que slo eran
accesibles por mula: de una recua de 64
mulas, 50 eran de carga y 14 servan de
montura a los empacadores, el cocinero y el herrero. Cada mula llevaba una
carga de 250 libras. El viaje en mula a
Lajitas, el puesto ms remoto, duraba
Casa Piedra y el Can de Fresno.

A pesar de la presencia masiva de tropas, siguieron las incursiones por el Ro
Grande en los aos 1916, 1917 y 1918,
y en ellas murieron personas en los Ranchos Brite y Neville. Despus de los ataques, tomaban sangrientas represalias
algunos civiles tejanos y los Texas Rangers en los mexicanos de la localidad.
En junio de 1919, fue trasladado a Marfa el 11 Escuadrn Areo, consistente
en cinco biplanos De Havilland DH.4
bajo el mando del Mayor Edgar Tobin, de
San Antonio, que ayudaran a patrullar
la frontera. Se construy un campo de
aviacin llamado Royce Field al este de
Marfa, cerca del actual campo de golf.
Los aviones hacan recorridos de reconocimiento por el ro dos veces al da, pero
desde luego los bandidos podan cruzar
el ro de noche sin ser detectados.
La llegada de los aviadores produjo un
A flying field, called Royce Field, was

built east of town, near the present
golf course. The planes flew reconnaissance missions along the Rio
Grande twice a day, but of course
bandits could still cross undetected
at night.
The arrival of the fliers led to one dramatic incident. Two months after the
airplanes arrived, one of the pilots
returning from a patrol down the river
mistook the Rio Conchos for the Rio
Grande and flew up it. He and his
observer were eighty miles into Mexico before they had engine trouble
and were forced to crash land. They
were unhurt, but they were taken into
custody by one of the most dreaded
bandit leaders, Jesus Renteria, known
as El Gancho (The Hook) because
acontecimiento dramtico. Dos meses
he had lost one hand and wore a

steel hook in its place. Renteria sent
a note to the army subpost at Candelaria demanding a $15,000 ransom
for the two fliers. The note arrived
on a Sunday morning and Captain
Matlack, the commander at Candelaria, called Colonel George T. Langhorne here at Marfa and read it to
him over the phone. Langhorne was
perplexed about how he was going
to get $15,000 in cash on a Sunday
morning, but he called the vicepresident of the Marfa State Bank,
H.M. Fennell. It happened that the
annual Bloys Camp Meeting was in
progress. Fennell drove out to Bloys,
interrupted the mens Sunday prayer
meeting, and in five minutes had
pledges from local ranchers for the
entire amount.
The money was sent to Captain
Matlack at Candelaria, who then
plejo: cmo iba a conseguir esa suma
despus de su venida, uno de los pilotos,

que volva con un acompaante de una
patrulla ro abajo, se confundi y sigui
por el Ro Conchos en lugar de por el Ro
Grande. Haban entrado 80 millas en territorio mexicano cuando fall el motor
y tuvieron que aterrizar de emergencia.
No fueron lesionados, pero los apres
un cacique muy temido, Jess Rentera,
conocido como El Gancho, en honor
al artefacto que haca las veces de una
mano perdida. Rentera envi una carta
al puesto militar de Candelaria exigiendo un rescate de $15,000 por los dos
aviadores. La nota lleg a Candelaria
un domingo por la maana, y el Capitn
Matlack, comandante del puesto, llam
al Coronel George T. Langhorne en Mar-
segundo pago. Cuando Matlack lleg al
of the 8th Cavalry from Camp Marfa

crossed the Rio Grande in pursuit of
the kidnappers and spent five days
in Mexico searching for them. They
were accompanied by one of the De
Havilland planes, which served as
their aerial scout. On the first day of
the expedition the De Haviland pilot
and his gunner spotted three men on
horseback who started shooting at
them with rifles. They swooped down
on the horsemen and fired their Lewis
machine gun at them, and on their
second pass saw a dead white horse
and a man lying face down on the
ground, apparently dead. At the end
of one of his arms was a gleaming
hook. They made several more passes
and the man did not move, and so
they reported that they had killed El
Gancho.
But El Gancho was only playing dead,
and he lived to fight another day. I
un caballo blanco muerto y un hombre
lugar convenido, le dijo al aviador que

se subiera a su caballo detrs de l, y
en lugar de sacar el dinero de su camisa, sac una pistola y grit: Dganle al
Gancho que ya vio su ltimo dlar. Matlack y el aviador escaparon al galope,
cruzando el ro en otro sitio.
Tan pronto como los aviadores quedaron a salvo, cinco elementos del 8 Regimiento de Caballera del Campamento
Marfa cruzaron el ro persiguiendo a los
secuestradores y pasaron cinco das buscndolos. Iban acompaados de uno de
los aviones De Havilland, que les daba
apoyo desde el aire. En el primer da, el
piloto del avin y su ayudante avistaron a tres hombres montados a caballo
y les dispararon con su ametralladora.
Al volver a sobrevolar el lugar, vieron
Fra nk D u n ca n .
fa y se la ley. Langhorne se qued per-
negotiated by note and messenger

with Renteria to ransom the fliers
one at a time. Matlack took $7,500
across the river in the dead of night
and came back with the first flier, but
when he went back for the second he
overheard Renterias men saying they
would kill him and the second flier at
the river crossing after the ransom
was paid. When he arrived at the rendezvous, he told the flier to climb up
behind him on his horse, and instead
of taking the ransom money out of his
shirt pulled a pistol out, said, Tell El
Gancho hes had his last American
dollar, and galloped back across the
river at a different crossing with the
flier behind him.
As soon as the aviators were safely
on this side of the river, five troops
en efectivo un domingo por la maana?

Acab por llamar al vicepresidente del
Banco Estatal de Marfa, H.M. Fennell.
Daba la casualidad de que en esos momentos se celebraba la reunin anual del
Campamento Bloys, un grupo religioso
de hombres pudientes de la localidad.
Fennell se dirigi al lugar, interrumpi
las oraciones de los fieles, y en cuestin
de cinco minutos haba obtenido la promesa de los asistentes a cubrir el monto
total del rescate.
Mandaron el dinero al Capitn Matlack
en Candelaria, quien negoci mediante
comunicaciones llevadas por un mensajero el rescate de los dos aviadores,
uno por uno. Matlack cruz el ro de noche con $7,500 y regres con el primer
rescatado, pero cuando iba a repetir la
maniobra, alcanz a or que los hombres
de Rentera pensaban matarlo a l y al
segundo aviador en cuanto recibieran el
61
tirado boca abajo sobre la tierra, al parecer muerto. Al extremo de un brazo

distinguieron un reluciente gancho. Siguieron sobrevolando, y como el hombre
no se mova, dieron parte de que haban
matado a El Gancho.
Pero El Gancho slo se haca el muerto,
y sobrevivi para pelear otro da. Yo conozco a un hombre aqu en Marfa, y la
primera esposa de su pap fue hija de El
Gancho. Me dijo que su padre le haba
confiado que El Gancho era el viejo ms
cruel que haba conocido. Le gustaba
sentarse en su porche con una botella
de sotol y un barril de cartuchos y disparar a varias cosas, me dijo mi amigo. Qu tipo de cosas? le pregunt.
Todo lo que se mova, me dijo. Gallinas, perros, nios
Los aos 1919 y 1920 fueron cruciales
para el Campamento Marfa. Justo al sur
de Washington, D.C., del lado sur del ro
know a man here in Marfa whose

fathers first wife was El Ganchos
daughter. He told me that his father
said that El Gancho was the meanest
old man he had ever seen. He liked
to sit on his porch with a bottle of sotol
and a barrel of cartridges and shoot
at things, my friend said. What kind
of things? I asked. Anything that
moved, my friend said, chickens,
dogs, children
1919 and 1920 were pivotal years for
Camp Marfa. Just south of Washington, D.C., on the Maryland side of
the Potomac, there is a huge stone fortress called Fort Washington. It was
built in 1824 so that the British could
never again sail up the Potomac and
burn Washington, as they did in
1814. It was a classic case of locking
Potomac en el estado de Mar yland, hay
the stable after the horse was gone.

Exactly the same thing happened
at Camp Marfa in 1919 and 1920.
When World War I ended in November 1918 the army had an enormous
amount of money left in their appropriations for that fiscal year. They
used it to build and improve facilities
all over the country.
At Camp Marfa the army moved out
of their tents and built permanent
structures. They leased 420 acres
from rancher W.G. Young at $125
per month to build them on. Young
wanted to hold out for $150, but a
committee of Marfa citizens, mindful of the benefits that an expanded
Camp Marfa would bring to the town,
called on him and persuaded him to
accept the $125 by promising to pay
him the extra $25 per month until the
army would agree to raising the rent.
The army never agreed to a higher
del ranchero W.G. Young a $125 por
una inmensa fortaleza de piedra llamada Fuerte Washington. Fue construida en

1824, para que los ingleses nunca pudieran entrar por el Potomac e incendiar
Washington, como lo hicieron en 1814.
Un caso clsico de cerrar la puerta del
establo despus de que sali el caballo. Ocurri exactamente lo mismo en el
Campamento Marfa en 1919 y 1920.
Cuando termin la Primera Guerra Mundial, en noviembre de 1918, el Ejrcito
contaba todava en sus cofres con una
cantidad enorme de dinero presupuestado para el ao fiscal. Utilizaron ese
dinero para construcciones y mejoras a
instalaciones en todo el pas.
En Marfa, el Ejrcito abandon sus tiendas de campaa y construyeron edificios permanentes. Alquilaron 420 acres
mes, pensando construir en ese terreno.

Young quiso insistir en un alquiler de
$150, pero una comisin de vecinos de
Marfa, conscientes de los beneficios que
acarreara la expansin del Campamento Marfa, le convenci de que aceptara
los $125, en la inteligencia de que ellos
le pagaran los $25 restantes hasta que
el Ejrcito estuviera de acuerdo en subir
la mensualidad. El Ejrcito nunca estuvo
de acuerdo en pagar la suma ms alta,
y tengo entendido que Young jams recibi sus $25 adicionales. En 1927, el
Ejrcito le compr el terreno a Young por
$27,000. La casa de Young es la vieja
casa escueta que se ve a mano derecha
justo al llegar a las oficinas de la Fundacin Chinati.
En 1919 y 1920 el Ejrcito emprendi en
serio su programa de construccin aqu.
Construyeron viviendas para oficiales,
cuarteles para soldados rasos, un club
62
rent, and I am told that Young never

got his extra $25 a month. In 1927,
the army bought the land from Young
for $27,000. Youngs house is the old
frame house on the right just as you
drive up to the Chinati Foundations
offices.
In 1919 and 1920 the army engaged
in a massive construction program
here. They built officers quarters,
enlisted mens barracks, mess halls,
an officers club, administrative buildings, stables, hay barns, and blacksmith shops. A separate quartermaster depot was built on forty-five leased
acres by the railroad tracks, where
Donald Judds home is now. By 1922
the post looked pretty much like it
does today. 184 buildings had been
erected in three years, and the post
de oficiales, edificios administrativos,
had a total complement of 92 officers

and 2,826 enlisted men.
However, 1920 marks the year that
Mexico achieved relative political stability under the presidency of Alvaro
Obregon, the one-armed general
who overthrew Venustiano Carranza
in 1919. The raids across the border
ceased, the subposts along the river
were closed, and Marfa was left
with a huge and extremely profitable
military establishment on the edge of
town.
For the next thirteen years Marfa was
an army town. The cavalry officers
stationed at Camp Marfa and their
wives became part of Marfa society.
The officers were well-traveled and
well-educated men. Many had seen
duty in Europe, in the Philippines,
and in Cuba, and they broadened the
universe of the average Marfan and
elevated the tone of society here. The
Durante los prximos 13 aos Marfa
establos, granjas y herreras. Se construy un almacn en un terreno de 45 acres

junto a las vas del ferrocarril, donde
est la casa de Donald Judd ahora. Para
1922, todo se vea ms o menos como se
ve hoy en da. Se haban construido 184
edificios en tres aos, y en total ascenda el personal adscrito a 92 oficiales y
2,826 soldados.
Sin embargo, el ao 1920 seal la estabilidad poltica en Mxico bajo la presidencia de lvaro Obregn, el general
manco que haba derrotado a Venustiano Carranza en 1919. Las incursiones a
travs del Ro Grande haban cesado, los
puestos suplementarios a lo largo del ro
estaban cerrados, y Marfa contaba con
una instalacin militar enorme y sumamente lucrativa a orillas de la ciudad.
fue un pueblo militar. Los oficiales de

caballera del Campamento Marfa y sus
esposas formaron parte de la sociedad
marfea. Los oficiales haban viajado
por el mundo y tenan estudios. Muchos
haban ser vido en Europa, en Filipinas
y en Cuba, y en general elevaban el nivel de la sociedad local. Los que eran
solteros salan con las hijas de los rancheros, y varios de ellos se casaron con
jvenes marfeas. El 7 de diciembre de
1923, Hester Brite, hija del ranchero ms
prominente de Marfa, Luke Brite, contrajo matrimonio con el Capitn Donald
Dunkle del Primer Regimiento de Caballera, y varias otras seoritas siguieron
su ejemplo. Los sectores militar y civil
estrecharon sus lazos.
Los civiles asistan a bailes en el club
de oficiales, y los militares y sus esposas iban a bailes en el Hotel Paisano.
La noche del Da de Accin de Gracias
bachelor officers provided a stream

of escorts for ranchers daughters
and several married Marfa girls
on December 7, 1923, Hester Brite,
daughter of Marfas most prominent
rancher, Luke Brite, married Capt.
Donald Dunkle of Troop C, First Cavalry, and several other young women
followed her example. The civilian
and military circles here became
tightly intertwined.
There were dances at the Camp Marfa officers club attended by Marfa
civilians and dances at the Paisano
Hotel attended by Camp Marfa officers and their wives. On Thanksgiving evening 1919, the camp Medical
Department gave a masquerade ball
for 100 couples, with music by the
5th Cavalry orchestra. The citizens of
de 1919, el Departamento de Medicina
Marfa thought of the cavalrymen at

Camp Marfa as our boys.
An officers life on a post like Camp
Marfa in the 1920s was the life of Riley at home. Officers of field grade
rank had two enlisted men, called
dog robbersthe term carried the
connotation that they ate the table
scraps that would otherwise be given
to their employers dogs a ssigned
to them as personal servants, one as a
valet and one as a housekeeper. The
officers workdays were not strenuous, either.
General Hamilton Howze, who
served with the 7 th Cavalry during
those years, recalled in his memoir,
A Cavalrymans Story, that he and
his fellow officers went to the enlisted
barracks after breakfast and supervised training exercises until 11:30
in the morning. They then went to officers call, a short meeting with the
escribe en sus memorias que l y los de-
del Campamento Marfa celebr un baile de mscaras para 100 parejas, con
msica provista por la orquesta militar.
Los residentes de Marfa se referan a los
soldados de caballera como nuestros
muchachos.
La vida hogarea de un oficial del Campamento Marfa en los aos veintes era
muy agradable. Los oficiales de rango
superior contaban con dos ayudantes
llamados robaperros (porque se supona que coman las sobras de comida que
de otra manera seran destinadas a las
mascotas), los cuales les eran asignados
como asistentes personales, uno como
valet y el otro como amo de llaves. El
trabajo de los oficiales no era fatigoso.
El general Hamilton Howze, adscrito
ser va t en el club. En 1923, el 5 de
the 5th Cavalry was replaced by the

1 st Cavalry, a regiment famous for
its polo, and that fall there were five
teams here.
1930 was a year of polo diplomacy
across the border. The Mexican Army
invited a team from Camp Marfa to
play in Chihuahua City. A delegation
of officers and fifty Big Bend citizens
went with them, but the 1st Cavalry
team lost all three games. A Mexican army team came to Marfa for
a re-match, accompanied by two
Mexican generals in the President of
Mexicos private railroad car and a
sixty-six-piece Mexican army band,
which played at the games and later at a series of after-game dinner
dances at the Paisano Hotel. Again
the Mexicans won. Finally there
was a match at Chapultapec Park in
Mexico City, and a special train carried the Fort D.A. Russsell team and
brados en el Hotel Paisano. Nuevamente
Caballera fue remplazado por el 1 de

Caballera, un regimiento famoso por
sus juegos de polo, y durante ese otoo
haba cinco equipos aqu.
En el ao 1930 el polo hizo un papel
diplomtico transfronterizo. El Ejrcito
Mexicano invit a un equipo del Campamento Marfa a jugar en la ciudad de
Chihuahua, acompaados de una delegacin de oficiales y 50 representantes
de Big Bend, pero el equipo americano
perdi todos los tres juegos. Despus
lleg un equipo del Ejrcito Mexicano
a Marfa para el reencuentro, en compaa de dos generales mexicanos que
viajaban en el vagn de ferrocarril privado del presidente de la repblica y de
una banda de 66 piezas que toc en los
partidos y posteriormente en bailes cele-
F r a nk D u n ca n .
durante esta poca al 7 de Caballera,
senior post officer, ate lunch, and had

the rest of the day free for tennis, golf,
swimming, or polo practice.
Polo was the great sport of cavalry
officers. It trained them for bold and
independent action and it was played
hell for leather. Hamilton Howze recalled that he played in two separate
matches in the 1930s in which one of
the players was killed.
The polo field at Camp Marfa was in
the southeast quadrant of the camp,
more or less where Donald Judds
concrete structures are now. In 1921
the first Polo Association was formed
here by officers of the 5 th Cavalry,
who all became members. The games
were played on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons and were followed by
Polo Teas at the officers club. In 1923
ms oficiales visitaban el cuartel de los

soldados despus de desayunar y supervisaban los ejercicios de entrenamiento
hasta las 11:30. Luego asistan a breves
reuniones, coman, y disponan del resto
del da libre para jugar tenis, golf o polo
o para practicar la natacin.
El polo era el deporte favorito de los
oficiales de caballera. Desarrollaba su
atrevimiento y su independencia, y lo
jugaban con mucha intensidad. Howze
coment que haba participado en dos
ocasiones en juegos en los cuales uno de
los jugadores haba resultado muerto.
El campo de polo se encontraba en la
parte sureste del Campamento, aproximadamente donde se exhiben hoy las
estructuras de concreto de Donald Judd.
En 1921 se form la primera Asociacin
de Polo, a la cual se afiliaron todos los
oficiales del 5 de Caballera. Se jugaba
los mircoles y domingos, y despus se
63
ganaron los mexicanos. Por fin jugaron

de nuevo en el Parque Chapultepec de la
Ciudad de Mxico, con mucha pompa y
boato, pero no parece haber constancia
del equipo ganador.
Mientras los oficiales jugaban tenis
y polo, los soldados rasos llevaban
una vida ms dura. ste era el ejrcito
descrito por James Jones en su novela
From Here to Eternity, en el que exista
un gran cisma entre ambos grupos. Los
soldados hablaban con los oficiales en
tercera persona, si es que les hablaban.
Charles Willeford, un soldado raso que
se incorpor al 11 de Caballera en
1935, recuerda que en tres aos haba
sostenido una sola conversacin con un
oficial, y en esa ocasin haba disparado
por error al perro del oficial. Willeford,
en su libro Something About a Soldier,
describi el entrenamiento bsico de un
recluta de caballera durante los aos
accompanying officers, wives, and

Marfa citizens to Mexico City. There
seems to be no record of who won
those matches, but everyone who
went was royally entertained.
While the officers were playing tennis and polo, the enlisted men here
had a somewhat rougher life. This
was the Old Army described by
James Jones in From Here to Eternity, and there was a very wide gap
between officers and enlisted men.
Enlisted men were required to speak
to officers in the third person, if they
spoke to them at all. Charles Willeford, who enlisted in the 11th Cavalry
in 1935, recalled that in three years
he only had one conversation with an
officer, and that was when he shot his
commanding officers dog by mistake
while on guard duty. Willeford, in his
book Something About a Soldier, described a cavalry recruits basic training in the 1930s. It lasted ninety days
and took place under the tutelage of
a sergeant. Mornings were spent in
learning to ride. Troopers started out
bareback, with only a blanket and a
bridle. They had to learn to mount by
vaulting onto the horse from behind,
with their hands on the horses crupper. They learned to turn completely
around while sitting on the horse,
first at a walk, then at a slow trot, a
canter, and finally a gallop. The final
test was to pull a T-shirt off over their
heads and put it back on again while
turning around on the horses back at
a gallop. I know about this firsthand
because my former wife, a San Antonio girl, taught me to ride this way.
She had learned horsemanship from
a retired sergeant at Fort Sam Houston who taught proper young San Antonio ladies to ride the cavalry way.
The recruits afternoons were spent in
drill, classes, and gymnastics. They
got passes to leave camp every Saturday from 1:00 P.M. to midnight, but
since all but $1.50 of their $21.00 a
month pay was withheld until their
ninety-day training period was over,
they could not afford much fun. The
seasoned enlisted men at Camp
Marfa must have found some entertainment in town, however, because
a 1919 Presidio County grand jury report reads, We find gambling and
bootlegging carried on in the county
to a great extent. Also lewd women
visit town frequently.
Even though national prohibition was
in effect through the 1920s, Camp
Marfas proximity to the border
meant that alcohol was readily available. The border proved to be just
as permeable to booze moving north
as it had been to munitions moving
south, and lewd women were plentiful. Enlisted men at Camp Marfa
sought the sort of entertainment that
soldiers have always sought and they
it in abundance in Marfa.
Besides drill, training, and polo, the
main army activity at Camp Marfa
in the 1920s was maneuvers. These
were large-scale war games, carried out by cavalry troops not only
from Camp Marfa but also Fort Bliss,
Fort Clark, and Fort Sam Houston.
Camp Marfa was the ideal spot for
these maneuvers because they could
be held on adjacent ranches without
disturbing the civilian population.
The first one, held in the fall of 1923,
lasted for two weeks and involved
6,000 men maneuvering across a
block of land twenty miles wide and
thirty miles long. It was a highly festive two weeks because in the evenings there were dances, receptions,
and banquets for the staff officers,
and the troops involved were paid
off while they were here. The payroll
came to $300,000, which was quite
an infusion into the local economy.
Similar maneuvers were held every
fall through 1932.
Although Camp Marfa flourished
through the 1920s, it was still technically considered a temporary post by
the army. In 1929 the army decided
to designate it a permanent post as
of January 1, 1930, and change its
name to Fort D.A. Russell. There had
been a Fort D.A. Russell, named after Civil War General Davis Allen
Russell, in Wyoming, and in 1929
that post was renamed Fort Francis
E. Warren after a recently deceased
Wyoming senator who happened to
be General John J. Pershings fatherin-law, and the name was transferred
to Camp Marfa. The citizens of Marfa were ecstatic.
Two years later, in May 1932, very
bad news came from Washington.
As an economy measure, the Hoover
Administration had decided to close
fifty-three military posts, and Fort
D.A. Russell was on the list.
Closing Fort D.A. Russell would be a
crippling blow to Marfa in the depths
of the Depression and Marfans organized to persuade the War Department to change its mind. Congressman Ewing Thompson and Senator
Morris Shepherd and Tom Connolly
swung into action, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution urging the
army not to leave, and rancher Luke
Brite went to Washington to call on
his fellow rancher, Vice Presidentelect John Nance Garner. All to no
avail. The army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, was adamant
treintas. Tena una duracin de 90 das

y se llevaba a cabo bajo la tutela de un
sargento. Por las maanas se practicaba
la equitacin, primero a pelo, con slo
una manta y la brida. Los reclutas deban aprender a montar el caballo desde
atrs, brincando y apoyando las manos
en la grupa del animal. Aprendan a
darse una vuelta completa, sentados en
el caballo, primero caminando, luego a
trote, a medio galope y al galope. Por
ltimo, deban quitarse la camiseta y
volver a ponrsela mientras se daban
una vuelta completa al galope. Yo lo s
de primera mano porque mi ex esposa,
que es de San Antonio, me ense a
montar a caballo de esta forma. A ella le
haba enseado un sargento del Fuerte
Sam Houston a cabalgar a la manera de
los soldados de caballera.
Los reclutas pasaban sus tardes en ejercicios y prcticas, en clases y haciendo
gimnasia. Les daban permiso para salir
del campamento los sbados de una de
la tarde a medianoche, pero como les
retenan $19.50 de su sueldo mensual de
$21.00 hasta que terminaban el entrenamiento de 90 das, les quedaba muy
poco que gastar en diversiones. Sin embargo, por lo que parece, los ms listos
se las ingeniaban para recrearse de alguna manera, porque en un documento
del gran jurado del Condado de Presidio, fechado en 1919, se lee lo siguiente: Encontramos juegos de apuestas y
licor de contrabando por todas partes.
Tambin visitan el pueblo con frecuencia
mujeres fciles.
Aunque en todo Estados Unidos se haba impuesto la prohibicin de bebidas
alcohlicas en los aos veintes, la proximidad del Campamento Marfa a la frontera significaba que obtener alcohol no
era nada difcil. El trfico transfronterizo
de licores hacia el norte era tan usual
como el de armas hacia el sur, y las mujeres fciles abundaban. Los soldados
rasos del campamento buscaban el mismo tipo de esparcimiento que buscan los
soldados dondequiera, y lo encontraban
de sobra en Marfa.
Aparte de los ejercicios y entrenamientos y el polo, la actividad principal en
el campamento en los aos veintes eran
las maniobras. Se trataba de simulacros
de combate a gran escala, en los que
participan soldados de caballera no
solamente del Campamento Marfa sino
tambin de los Fuertes Bliss, Clark y Sam
Houston. El Campamento Marfa era el
lugar ideal para tales maniobras porque
se podan efectuar en ranchos cercanos
sin estorbar a la poblacin civil. La primera de ellas, que dur dos semanas,
tuvo lugar en el otoo de 1923 con la
participacin de 6,000 hombres que maniobraban sobre un terreno que meda
20 millas de ancho y 30 de largo. Fue64
ron dos semanas sumamente festivas, ya

que en las noches haba bailes, recepciones y banquetes para los oficiales, y
los soldados participantes reciban su
pago aqu mismo. La nmina ascenda a
$300,000, una considerable inyeccin
de dinero para la economa local. Otras
maniobras similares eran realizadas todos los otoos hasta 1932.
Si bien el Campamento Marfa prosper
a travs de la dcada de los veintes, el
Ejrcito lo consideraba todava un puesto temporal. En 1929 se tom la decisin
de designarlo como puesto permanente
a partir del 1 de enero de 1930, cambiando el nombre a Fuerte D.A. Russell.
Haba existido en Wyoming un Fuerte
D.A. Russell, que llevaba el nombre del
general de la Guerra Civil Davis Allen
Russell, pero en 1929 esta designacin
fue modificada para conmemorar a un
senador del estado de Wyoming recin
fallecido que era tambin el suegro del
General John J. Pershing, y esta otra instalacin se convirti en el Fuerte Francis
E. Warren. A los marfeos les encant.
Dos aos despus, en mayo de 1932, llegaron malas noticias desde Washington.
Por motivos econmicos, el gobierno del
presidente Hoover opt por clausurar 53
puestos militares, entre los cuales estaba
el Fuerte D.A. Russell.
El cierre del fuerte sera un golpe muy
duro para Marfa en los momentos ms
duros de la Depresin, y los vecinos de
Marfa se organizaron para intentar
persuadir al Departamento de Guerra
a cambiar de parecer. El congresista
Ewing Thompson y el senador Morris
Shepherd y Tom Connolly entraron en
accin: la legislatura de Texas aprob
una resolucin en que le pedan encarecidamente al Ejrcito no abandonar
el pueblo, y el ranchero Luke Brite se
dirigi a Washington para solicitar la
ayuda del vicepresidente electo, John
Nance Garner, ranchero como l. Pero
el jefe del estado mayor del Ejrcito, el
General Douglas McArthur, reafirm su
opinin de que el Fuerte D.A. Russell era
redundante. Le dijo a Luke Brite, cuyo
rancho haba sido atacado en 1917,
que los tiempos de las incursiones ya
pasaron y que, si volvan a ocurrir, aviones de San Antonio podan llegar al Big
Bend en cuestin de tres horas. El Fuerte
D.A. Russell cerrara el 1 de enero de
1933, y no haba ms remedio.
Esta decisin, junto con otra tomada por
el Departamento de Guerra, provoc
uno de los incidentes ms dramticos, y
al mismo tiempo menos comprendidos,
de la historia del Fuerte D.A. Russell, a
saber, el entierro del ltimo Caballo.
Durante los aos veintes haba surgido
un gran inters en mecanizar el Ejrcito, alimentado por el uso de camiones y

tanques en la Primera Guerra Mundial.
Cuando Douglas MacArthur ascendi al
cargo de jefe del estado mayor 1931,
desarroll la doctrina de que todas las
fuerzas militares deban mecanizarse
en la medida de sus posibilidades y su
propsito. Consider que la caballera,
por su movilidad y otras caractersticas, deba mecanizarse en forma total,
y dispuso que el Primer Regimiento de
Caballera se convirtiera en el prototipo de este proceso, abandonando por
completo el uso de caballos y adoptando
la mecanizacin a partir del 1 de enero
de 1933, fecha en que se programaba
el cierre del Fuerte D.A. Russell. El regimiento deba ser transferido al Fuerte
Knox, en Kentucky, donde aprenderan
a manejar tanques y carros blindados,
pero tendran que dejar sus caballos en
read Animo et FideSpirited and

Faithful. Louie was by no means the
last horse in the cavalry, as has often
been claimed, nor was the regiment
being disbanded, as the Chinati
Foundations website says. Louie was
just a horse that was too old to be
of any further use to the cavalry. But
he is the only horse in the cavalry to
be commemorated with a sculpture
by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van
Bruggen, which you can see on the
other side of the barracks just west of
this mess hall.
Two weeks after the final review, on
January 2, 1933, the First Cavalry
left Fort D.A. Russell for Fort Knox
in a convoy of eighty-four army
trucks, followed by the officers and
their families in their own cars. The
desde 1911. Hubo la breve esperanza
fort was empty for the first time since

1911. There was a brief hope that the
buildings might be used for a veterans hospital, but that fell through.
The Border Patrol moved into several
buildings and used them as offices;
the rest were in charge of a sergeant
who ser ved as a caretaker. The
stables and the hay sheds were torn
down and the salvaged lumber sold.
The Republican Hoover Administration, which left office in March 1933,
tried to solve the Depression by cutting federal spending and reducing
the army. The Democratic Roosevelt
Administration tried a different tack
and increased federal spending to
create jobs and employ the unemployed. This included expanding the
size of the army.
In 1934, in the face of German rearmament and Japanese withdrawal
from the Naval Limitation Treaties,
mania y el retiro de Japn del Tratado
de que los edificios pudieran ser aprovechados como hospital para veteranos,
pero no result. La Patrulla Fronteriza
luego ocup varios de los edificios en
calidad de oficinas; los dems quedaron a cargo de un sargento que les daba
mantenimiento. Los establos y edificios
para almacenar heno fueron desmantelados y se vendi la madera rescatada.
El gobierno republicano de Hoover,
quien dej la presidencia en marzo de
1933, intent poner fin a la Depresin
reduciendo los gastos a nivel federal y
disminuyendo el tamao del Ejrcito. El
gobierno demcrata de Roosevelt opt
por otra solucin, incrementando sus
gastos para crear empleos, incluyendo
la expansin del Ejrcito.
En 1934, ante la militarizacin de Ale-
Texas, los cuales seran distribuidos entre otros regimientos del estado.
En consecuencia, el 14 de diciembre de
1932, el 1 de Caballera pas su ltima
revista a caballo en el Fuerte D.A. Russell ante el Coronel William Austin, quien
ley la historia del regimiento mientras
los soldados permanecan de pie al lado
de sus monturas. Uno de los caballos,
llamado Old Louie, tena 31 aos de
edad y haba ser vido con el regimiento
1st Sq ua dr o n o f t h e 7 t h C ava lry l in e d u p f o r p ict u r e - ta k in g

d ur in g a l ull in f ig h t ing M e x ica n b a n d it s w h il e at M a rfa .
in his opinion that Fort D.A. Russell

was redundant. He told Luke Brite,
whose own ranch had been raided
in 1917, that the days of border raids
were over and, if they ever resumed,
airplanes from San Antonio could
reach the Big Bend in three hours.
Fort D.A. Russell would close on January 1, 1933, and that was it.
This decision, in conjunction with another decision taken by the War Department, produced one of the most
dramatic and at the same time one
of the most misunderstood incidents
in the history of Fort D.A. Russell, the
burial of the Last Horse.
In the 1920s a great interest in mechanizing the army had developed as
result of the use of trucks and tanks
in World War I. When Douglas Mac
Arthur became chief of staff in 1931
he developed the doctrine that each
branch of the service should embrace mechanization to the extent
that mechanization enhanced its own
mission. He felt that the cavalry, with
its combined characteristics of mobility, firepower, and shock, lent itself
to complete mechanization, and he
ordered the 1st Cavalry Regiment to
become a prototype by abandoning
their horses and embracing mechanization on January 1, 1933, the day
that their headquarters at Fort D.A.
Russell was slated to be closed. The
regiment was to be transferred to Fort
Knox, Kentucky, where they would
learn to drive tanks and armored
cars, but they were to leave their
horses in Texas. The horses would be
distributed to other cavalry regiments
in the state.
Accordingly, on December 14, 1932,
the 1st Cavalry held its last mounted
review at Fort D.A. Russell. The regiment passed in review before Colonel William Austin, who then read
the regimental histor y while the
troopers stood at attention beside
their mounts. One horse, a thirtyone-year-old gelding named Old
Louie who had served the regiment
for twenty-eight years, was riderless
and draped in black. Louie was too
old to be shipped to another fort,
and instead of being sold to the
slaughterhouse, the usual fate of superannuated army horses, he was
chosen as a symbol of the demise of
the regiment as a mounted unit. According to contemporary newspaper
accounts, at the close of the review
the troopers marched back to their
barracks in formation, their horses
were returned to their stables, but
Louie was disposed of painlessly
and buried on the forts grounds, under a tombstone with a plaque that
durante 28 aos. Apareca solo, sin jinete, cubierto de pao negro. Louis era demasiado viejo para ser trasladado a otro
lugar, y en lugar de venderlo a un rastro,
el destino de casi todos los caballos de
edad avanzada en el Ejrcito, lo hicieron un smbolo del fin del regimiento
como unidad montada. Segn reportes
de peridicos de ese tiempo, al concluir
la ceremonia los soldados marcharon en
formacin a sus cuarteles y sus caballos
fueron devueltos a los establos, pero a
Louie lo pusieron a dormir sin que sintiera ningn dolor, y fue enterrado en los
predios del fuerte, bajo una lpida con
la inscripcin Animo et Fide (Espiritoso y Fiel). Louie no fue el ltimo caballo
del regimiento, como se ha dicho en algunas ocasiones, ni el regimiento estaba
siendo disuelto, como se afirma en el sitio de web de la Fundacin Chinati. Louie
fue simplemente un caballo viejo que ya
no era apto para ser vir en el Ejrcito.
Pero es el nico caballo de caballera
en ser conmemorado mediante una escultura realizada por Claes Oldenburg
y Coosje van Bruggen, una obra que se
puede apreciar del otro lado del cuartel
justo al oeste de este comedor donde nos
encontramos ahora.
Dos semanas despus de la ltima revista, el 2 de enero de 1933, el 1 de Caballera sali del Fuerte D.A. Russell con
destino al Fuerte Knox, en un convoy de
84 camiones, seguidos de los oficiales y
sus familias en sus automviles. El fuerte
haba quedado vaco por primera vez
65
de Limitacin Naval, el Congreso estadounidense autoriz un incremento de

47,000 elementos para el Ejrcito, y el
Fuerte D.A. Russell fue reactivado como
base de entrenamiento, funcin que
cumplira hasta finales de la Segunda
Guerra Mundial II. En julio de 1935, 135
hombres del servicio de intendencia llegaron a Marfa para rehabilitar el fuerte. Gastaron $150,000 en materiales y
contrataron a trabajadores locales, por
lo que fueron muy bien recibidos aqu.
En octubre lleg el 77 Regimiento de
Artillera de Campo, con 600 elementos
ms. ste era un regimiento motorizado equipado de obuses de 155mm bajo
el mando del Coronel Robert H. Lewis,
que vena acompaado de su esposa y
su hija, Laura. El Coronel Lewis fue probablemente el comandante ms popular
que haya tenido nunca el Fuerte D.A.
Russell. Cuando se fue, en su honor los
wife were on a quail hunt with some

Marfa people when they heard the
news of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor on the car radio. Fort D.A.
Russell suddenly became a wartime
military post.
The first weeks of the war are hard to
document because for security reasons there was a blackout on all news
from the fort. We know that no one
from town was allowed to enter the
post without the post commanders
permission, and that on January 12,
1942, Colonel Frankenberger organized a practice blackout in Marfa,
just in case the Luftwaffe or the Japanese were planning a bombing raid
on the town. There was a very real
fear that saboteurs might slip across
the border and try to damage the
fort, and a mounted citizens militia
called the Highland Hereford Rough
Riders was organized by members
of the Highland Hereford Breeders
Association to patrol the region on
horseback. Most of its members were
well over draft age.
The full impact of the war hit Fort
D.A. Russell and Marfa in early
1942, when the 77th Field Artillery
departed for an unknown location
and five officers and seventy-six men
from the 81st Chemical Warfare Battalion arrived from Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. A chemical warfare battalion was not as sinister as
it sounds. It was essentially a mortar
unit that fought with the infantry, but
its mortars could fire not only conventional explosive shells but also
phosphorous shells that would start
fires and smoke shells that would
lay down smokescreens, and so according to army logic it was part
of the chemical corps rather the
infantry.
The officers and men from Edgewood
Arsenal who arrived at Fort D.A.
Russell in April 1942 were charged
with forming a new battalion. They
were followed by 800 draftees, and
it was their job to mold those men
into a fighting battalion during the
year that they were at Fort D.A. Russell. The 81st Chemical Warfare Battalion trained on the newly acquired
artillery range and on adjoining
ranches, including the slopes of Cathedral Mountain, which appeared
along with the Lone Star of Texas on
the shoulder patches they wore as
their distinctive unit insignia. Marfa
adopted the battalion in the same
way that they had adopted the cavalrymen twenty years earlier. The
81st Chemical Warfare Battalion became Marfas own. Families adopted
groups of enlisted men and served
C ol on el J oh n S . Fa ir , C omm a n d in g 1st US Cava lry, F ort D. A. R ussell.
Congress authorized an increase

of 47,000 men to the army, and
Fort D.A. Russell was reopened as
a training base, a function it would
perform until the end of World War
II. In July 1935 135 Quartermaster
Corps men arrived in Marfa to recondition the fort. They spent $150,000
on materials and hired local labor
to do the work, which made them
most welcome here. In October the
77th Field Artillery Regiment arrived,
600 men strong. This was a motorized regiment equipped with 155mm
howitzers under the command of
Colonel Robert H. Lewis, who was
accompanied by his wife and their
daughter, Laura. Colonel Lewis was
probably the most popular commanding officer ever to serve at Fort D.A.
Russell. When he left the local ranchers changed the name of La Viuda
Peak, south of town, to Lewis Peak
in his honor. His wife, a San Antonio
native and the daughter of south Texas rancher John Rufus Blocker, was
made president of the Marfa History
Club, an unprecedented honor for
someone not originally from Marfa.
The History Club, a local womans
club, was formed in the 1890s and is
still in existence and I will guarantee
you that Mrs. Lewis is the only temporary resident of Marfa ever elected to
its presidency.
Colonel Lewis undertook an elaborate building program at the fort,
using a $100,000 appropriation to
convert it from a cavalry post to an
artillery post. He built gun sheds,
a motor repair shop, a warehouse,
and a movie theater, supplementing his War Department funds with
Works Progress Administration funds
and labor. By 1939 the monthly payroll at the fort was $24,200 and
Marfa was once more an army
town.
In March 1940 war was raging in Europe and Americas first peace-time
draft went into effect. This led to the
final expansion of Fort D.A. Russell.
The city of Marfa held a bond election
to purchase 2,000 acres adjacent
to the fort, which they leased to the
army as an artillery firing range. At
the same time, the army added four
two-story barracks, two more mess
halls, and bachelor officers quarters
to the fort. This was when the post
swimming pool acquired its bizarre
surrounding battlemented wall and
turrets, intended to represent an old
Spanish fort. Colonel Lewis retired
and Colonel Bertram Frankenberger
became the post commander.
On Sunday morning, December 7,
1941, Colonel Frankenberger and his
rancheros locales cambiaron el nombre

de un cerro al sur de la ciudad de La
Viuda Peak a Lewis Peak. Su esposa,
originaria de San Antonio e hija de un
ranchero tejano llamado John Rufus
Blocker, fue nombrada presidenta del
Club de Historia de Marfa, un honor sin
precedentes para una persona que no
era de Marfa. Este club, cuyos miembros
eran todas mujeres, se haba formado
durante la ltima dcada del siglo XIX
y existe todava. Les aseguro que la
seora Lewis ha sido la nica residente
temporal de Marfa en ser elegida a la
presidencia del grupo.
El Coronel Lewis inici un ambicioso
programa de construccin, gastando
$100,000 para convertir el puesto caballera en un puesto de artillera. Construy almacenes para armamentos, un
taller de reparacin de motores, una
bodega y una sala de proyeccin de pelculas, aprovechando tambin fondos
y mano de obra disponibles a travs
de la Works Progress Administration.
Ya para 1939, la nmina mensual del
fuerte ascenda a $24,200 y Marfa era,
de nuevo, un pueblo militar.
En marzo de 1940, con la guerra europea, Estados Unidos implement por
primera vez en tiempo de paz la conscripcin obligatoria, lo que determinara la expansin final del Fuerte D.A.
Russell. La ciudad de Marfa adquiri
2,000 acres adyacentes al fuerte, los
cuales dio en arrendamiento al Ejrcito
como campo de pruebas de artillera. Al
mismo tiempo, el Ejrcito agreg cuatro
cuarteles de dos pisos, dos comedores
adicionales y habitaciones para oficiales solteros. Fue en esta poca cuando
construyeron alrededor de la piscina
extraos muros con almenas y torrecillas, dando la impresin de una antigua
fortaleza espaola. El coronel Lewis se
jubil, y el Coronal Bertram Frankenberger ascendi a la comandancia del
puesto.
La maana del domingo 7 de diciembre
de 1941, el Coronel Frankenberger y su
66
esposa haban salido a cazar codornices

con unos vecinos de Marfa cuando oyeron por la radio de su auto la noticia de
que los japoneses haban atacado Pearl
Harbor. El Fuerte D.A. Russell se convirti de inmediato en un puesto militar
de guerra.
Resulta difcil documentar las primeras
semanas de la guerra, ya que por razones de seguridad exista un bloqueo
informativo. Sabemos que ningn residente de Marfa poda entrar al fuerte
sin el permiso del comandante, y que
el 12 de enero de 1942 el Coronal
Frankenberger organiz un simulacro
de apagn en Marfa, en caso de que
el Luftwaffe o los japoneses planearan
bombardear el pueblo. Por temor a que
unos saboteadores pudieran cruzar la
frontera e intentar daar el fuerte, se
form una milicia montada llamada
Highland Hereford Rough Riders, integrada por miembros de la asociacin
de ganaderos local, para patrullar la
regin. La mayora de sus miembros tenan una edad superior a la permitida
para reclutas del Ejrcito.
El impacto de la guerra se hizo sentir
en toda su intensidad en el Fuerte D.A.
Russell y en Marfa a principios de 1942,
cuando la 77 Artillera de Campo parti
con destino desconocido y 5 oficiales y
76 elementos del 81 Batalln de Guerra Qumica llegaron desde el Arsenal
Edgewood en Mar yland. Un batalln
de guerra qumica no era tan siniestro
como sonaba: se trataba esencialmente
de una unidad de mortero que combata
al lado de la infantera, pero sus proyectiles podan ser de explosivos tradicionales o de fsforo, los cuales provocaran incendios, y bombas de humo, que
levantaban cortinas de humo, as que de
acuerdo con la lgica militar, la unidad
perteneca no al cuerpo de infantera
sino al de las armas qumicas.
Los oficiales y soldados del Arsenal
Edgewood que llegaron al Fuerte D.A.
Russell en abril de 1942 se proponan
formar un nuevo batalln. Vinieron
poco despus 800 reclutas, a quienes
los soldados ms avezados deban
convertir en un batalln de combate
cohesivo en el espacio de un ao. El
81 Batalln de Guerra Qumica realiz
ejercicios en el campo de pruebas de
artillera y en ranchos cercanos, incluyendo las laderas del cerro Cathedral
Mountain, cuya imagen apareca, junto
con la estrella solitaria emblemtica de
Texas, en las insignias que llevaban
en el hombro de su uniforme. Marfa
adopt al batalln de la misma manera que haba adoptado a los soldados
de caballera 20 aos antes. Marfa se
preciaba de su batalln, y las familias
del pueblo invitaban a estos hombres a
cenar en su casa los domingos. El 12 de
them Sunday dinners. On September

12, 1942, the men of Company D
reciprocated with a reception and
buffet dinner right here in Mess Hall
#35, and PFC Maurice Aronson
decorated these walls with cartoons
depicting army life for that occasion.
The cartoons, as you can see, are
still here.
In April 1943 the 81st Chemical
Warfare Battalion was shipped out
to Camp Pickett, Virginia, and from
there they were sent to England to
prepare for D-Day. They were replaced by the 85th Chemical Warfare
Battalion, which was under the command of a colonel with the remarkable name of Napoleon Rainbolt.
In England, the 81st was attached to
the V Corps of the First Army. They
landed at Normandy, fought their
way through the hedgerows, participated in the liberation of Paris and
the Battle of Metz; and were in Austria when the war ended. The unit
was awarded more than 500 decorations, including 353 Purple Hearts.
The soldiers of the 81st corresponded
with Marfa friends all through the
war, and they were still wearing Cathedral Mountain on their shoulder
patches when they were mustered
out at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri,
in September 1945.
Now I want to close by describing
the final chapter in the history of Fort
D.A. Russell as a military post.
When the North African campaign
got underway in the spring of 1943
there was a huge bag of German
prisoners, and about 150,000 of
them were sent to the United Sates,
because it was easier to house,
guard, and feed them here than it
was in North Africa. Seventy-nine
thousand of those prisoners ended
up in Texas in 120 P.O.W. camps
and subcamps. In November 1943,
186 German P.O.W.s arrived at Fort
D.A. Russell, where a compound
was built to house them south of Officers Hill. That P.O.W. compound
consisted of barracks, a mess hall,
a laundry, and a softball diamond,
and it was guarded by a Military
Police detachment. The prisoners
did maintenance work around the
fort. Several Marfans can still recall watching them march to work
in formation, singing German songs
in chorus. The enlisted men were
paid eighty cents a day in canteen
coupons for their labor; they could
use the coupons to buy cigarettes,
candy, and beer at the prisoners
canteen.
In 1977 a historian at Texas A&M
named Arnold P. Krammer published
an article on German P.O.W.s in

Texas in the Southwestern Historical
Quarterly. He entitled it When the
Afrika Corps Came to Texas. In doing the research for it he interviewed
a number of men in Germany who
had been P.O.W.s in Texas. His conclusion was that most of them had a
pretty easy time of it. The one fond
memory of prison camp life that they
all shared was of the foodbeef, tomatoes, green vegetables, milk, even
ice cream. We thought we were in
heaven, he quoted one of them as
saying. We ate food which was not
even found in our mothers kitchens
at homewhite bread and real coffee. We were dumbstruck.
The P.O.W.s main enemy was boredom, and to combat that they organized chess clubs, concerts, classes,
and other activities. It was probably
boredom, plus a desire for artistic expression, that led two of the prisoners
here, Hans Jurgen Press and Robert
Hempel, to decorate the post officers
club with murals, murals that have
been preserved through the efforts of
Mona Garcia of Marfa and the International Womens Foundation, which
now occupies that building, known
as Building 98. It was definitely boredom that led three prisoners to attempt an escape in April 1944. They
were captured near Sierra Blanca,
and after three days on foot in the
Chihuahua desert they were very
glad to see their captors. They said
they intended to walk to Mexico, then
go to South America and get back to
Germany from there.
Somehow this futile escape attempt
seems to be a good place to end this
talk. Fort D.A. Russell was placed
on inactive status on May 25, 1945,
shortly after the war in Europe ended. Although fighting was still going
on in the Pacific Theatre, the War
Department said that there was no
longer a need to train troops. The last
German prisoners of war left in November 1945, and the post was officially closed on October 23, 1946.
It was turned over to the Corps of
Engineers to be sold as surplus real
estate. Who knew then that today, a
hundred years after its founding, it
would be a flourishing international
art center, and that its grounds and
buildings would echo not with the
tramp of soldiers but the quiet footsteps of artists and visitors from all
over the world?
Southwestern Historical Quarterly titu-
En 1977, un historiador de la Universi-
This lecture was first given at the Chinati Foun-
Conferencia dictada por Lonn Taylor en la Funda-
dad Texas A&M, Arnold P. Krammer, pu-
dation, Marfa, TX on May 1, 2011.
cin Chinati, Marfa, Texas, 1 de mayo de 2011.
septiembre de 1942, los miembros de la

Compaa D correspondieron el favor
con una recepcin y cena buffet aqu
mismo en el Comedor #35. El soldado
Maurice Aronson decor las paredes
del comedor con dibujos alusivos a la
vida militar especialmente para la ocasin y, como pueden ustedes apreciar,
los dibujos existen todava.
En abril de 1943, el 81 Batalln de Guerra Qumica parti para el Campamento
Pickett, en Virginia, y de all a Inglaterra, preparndose para el Da D (la invasin de Normanda). Fueron sustituidos
por el 85 Batalln de Guerra Qumica,
bajo el mando de un coronel con el portentoso nombre de Napoleon Rainbolt.
En Inglaterra, el Batalln 81 se unin al
5 Cuerpo del Primer Ejrcito. Arribaron
a Normanda, combatiendo, abrindose
paso entre los setos y avanzando hasta
participar en la liberacin de Pars y la
Batalla de Metz. Al finalizar la guerra
se encontraban en Austria. La unidad
fue merecedora de ms de 500 reconocimientos y condecoraciones, incluyendo
353 Corazones Prpura. Los soldados
del 81 mantenan correspondencia con
sus amigos en Marfa durante el transcurso de la guerra, y todava portaban
la insignia de Cathedral Mountain en el
hombro de sus uniformes cuando fueron
dados de baja de su unidad en septiembre de 1945.
Ahora quiero concluir con una descripcin del ltimo captulo en la historia del
Fuerte D.A. Russell como puesto militar.
Cuando se inici la campaa del Norte
de frica, en la primavera de 1943, haba una cantidad enorme de prisioneros
alemanes, de los cuales unos 150,000
fueron transportados a Estados Unidos
porque resultaba ms fcil alojarlos,
custodiarlos y alimentarlos en este pas
que en frica. De dichos prisioneros,
79,000 fueron a dar en Texas, en 120
campamentos de prisioneros de guerra.
En noviembre de 1943, 186 prisioneros
alemanes llegaron al Fuerte D.A. Russell, donde se construyeron instalaciones para alojarlos al sur del Cerro de los
Oficiales. Esas instalaciones consistan
en cuarteles, un comedor, una lavandera y un campo de bisbol, todos los
cuales eran vigilados por la Polica Militar. Los prisioneros realizaban obras de
mantenimiento, y varios residentes de
Marfa recuerdan todava haberlos visto
mientras marchaban en formacin, hacia el trabajo, coreando canciones en
alemn. Se les daban cupones con valor
de 80 centavos, con los cuales podan
adquirir cigarrillos, dulces y cer veza en
lado Cuando el Cuerpo Afrika Lleg a

Texas. Al hacer su investigacin, Krammer entrevist en Alemania a varios
hombres que haban sido prisioneros en
Texas. Lleg a la conclusin de que para
la mayora, la experiencia haba sido
bastante grata. El recuerdo positivo que
todos conser vaban era de la comida
carne de res, tomates, verduras, leche,
hasta helados. Nos pareca estar en la
gloria, dijo uno de ellos. Comamos
cosas que no haba siquiera en nuestro
hogar, en la cocina de nuestras madres:
pan blanco y caf verdadero. Nos quedamos asombrados.
El enemigo principal de los prisioneros
de guerra era el tedio, y para combatirlo organizaron clubes de ajedrez,
conciertos, clases y otras actividades.
Probablemente debido al aburrimiento, junto con el deseo de una expresin
artstica, dos de los prisioneros, Hans
Jurgen Press y Robert Hempel, decoraron el club de oficiales con pinturas murales, las cuales han sido conser vadas
gracias a los esfuerzos de Mona Garca,
de Marfa, y la Fundacin Internacional
de Mujeres, la cual ocupa actualmente
ese edificio, conocido como el Edificio
98. Seguramente por aburrimiento tres
prisioneros intentaron escapar en abril
de 1944. Fueron capturados cerca de
Sierra Blanca, y despus de tres das caminando por el desierto de Chihuahua,
les dio mucho gusto ver a sus captores.
Dijeron que pensaban llegar a pie hasta
Mxico, luego a Sudamrica y de ah
regresar a Alemania.
De alguna manera me parece justo
aprovechar esta ancdota del intento
fracasado de escape para poner fin a
esta charla. El Fuerte D.A. Russell fue
clasificado como inactivo el 25 de mayor de 1945, poco despus del fin de
la guerra en Europa. Aunque segua
el combate en el Pacfico, el Departamento de Guerra declar que no haba
ms necesidad de entrenar tropas. Los
ltimos prisioneros alemanes partieron
en noviembre de 1945, y el puesto fue
cerrado oficialmente el 23 de octubre de
1946. El Cuerpo de Ingenieros se hizo
cargo de l, con la intencin de vender
sus terrenos. Quin saba, en aquel entonces, que el da de hoy, a los cien aos
de su fundacin, este lugar se habra
convertido en un floreciente centro de
arte internacional, y que en sus predios
y edificios se escuchara no el duro eco
de soldados marchando, sino las suaves
pisadas de artistas y visitantes que llegan de todas partes del mundo?
la cantina de los prisioneros.
blic un artculo sobre los prisioneros de

guerra alemanes en Texas en la revista
67
Donald Judd Ingeniera del siglo vente
donald judd
most consumer products are poorly

designed; industrial tools arent seen
as much and havent been given comparable attention; airplanes, rockets
and satellites are of course much
praised, but there are comparatively
few types and they, like tools, are mobilewhich is thought less profound
than fixity. Airplanes, machines and
tools are also made by engineers. In
its recent show of Twentieth-Century
Engineering, the Museum of Modern
Art stopped in the direction of mobility with radio telescopes and radar
antennae. The work presented in the
large and small photographs of the
exhibition is some of the best in the
world. Engineering is also responsible for an immense number of bleak
buildings and for much affected design, such as the rustic stone bridges
over some of the highways.
There are a few attitudes about these
structures that should be taken into
account. It is hard not to see these
projects as the last word of science.
They are almost the only visible science and so are apparently the truth
of the present and the beginning of
that of the future. They have been
built and so seem to be the best that
can be built. Obviously, though, they
dont involve that much science, and
they may not be the best that can be
built. Also, as Arthur Drexler, who
organized the exhibition, states in
the catalogue, engineering is not as
Twentieth-century
engineering
Ingeniera del
siglo veinte
(1964)
Represas, caminos, puentes, tneles,

edificios de almacenamiento y otras
estructuras tilesstos constituyen en
su mayora las mejores cosas visibles
hechas en este siglo. Formulado este
concepto as, de manera general, es probable que la gente est ms de acuerdo
con esta declaracin que con cualquier
otra relativa a todo lo que se puede ver.
El arte es de tamao reducido y no tan
abundante; la arquitectura es bastante
escasa; la mayor parte de los productos de consumo estn mal diseados;
las herramientas industriales no se ven
tanto y no se les ha dado una atencin
semejante; los aviones, cohetes y satli-
Gol d -Za c k P la n t. Gossa u , Switz erl a n d. 1954. 7 Ba rr e l-va ult ed sh ell s. H ei n z Ho ssdo rf. Arc hit ect: D an ze isen & Vos e r .
Dams, roads, bridges, tunnels, storage buildings and various other useful structures comprise the bulk of the
best visible things made in this century. As long as this opinion is cast as
a general statement, more people will
probably agree to it than to any other
statement about everything that can
be seen. Art is small in size and not
as plentiful; architecture is fairly rare;
68
tes desde luego son muy alabados, pero

hay relativamente pocos tipos de los mismos y, al igual que las herramientas, son
mviles, por lo que se les atribuye menos
profundidad que a los objetos fijos. Los
aviones, las mquinas y las herramientas tambin son hechos por ingenieros.
En su exhibicin reciente Ingeniera del
Siglo Veinte, el Museo de Arte Moderno
no lleg ms all, en cuanto a movilidad, de los radiotelescopios y las antenas de radar. Las obras retratadas en
las grandes y pequeas fotografas de
esta exhibicin estn entre las mejores
del mundo. La ingeniera es responsable
asimismo por una enorme cantidad de
edificios escuetos y por mucha afectacin de diseo, como en los puentes de
piedra sobre algunas carreteras.
Con relacin a estas estructuras hay
varias actitudes que se deben tener en
cuenta. Resulta difcil no concebir estos
proyectos como la ltima palabra de la
ciencia. Constituyen casi la nica ciencia visible, y por lo tanto parecen ser
la verdad del presente y el inicio de la
del futuro. Han sido construidos, y por
eso aparentan ser lo mejor que se puede construir. Sin embargo, es evidente
que no hay tanta ciencia de por medio,
y tal vez no sean lo mejor que se pueda
construir. Adems, como afirma en el catlogo de la exhibicin Arthur Drexler,
organizador de la misma, la ingeniera
no es tan objetiva como la pintan: no
toda ella es ciencia y parte de ella es
arte. Existen preferencias por ciertas
M e is h a n D a m . H ua i R iv er , C h in a . 19 5 6 . Cr est l en gt h : 1, 8 3 0 .
Donald Judd Twentieth-century engineering
objective as it appears; its not all science; its partly art. There are preferences for certain forms. Maillart
designs streamlined Arpish bridges;
the new German bridges are very
straight and angular, one cantilevered from an A-frame and another
just from poles; the George Washington and Verrazano bridges have
arches within their piers w hich is
especially undesirable in the Verrazano because the piers are covered
and the result looks like masonry.
Engineering, incidentally, is a fairly
anonymous art, as Othmar Ammanns
obscurity indicates. The Verrazano
or one of his other bridges around
Manhattan should be named for him.
Despite this subjectivity and art, it
seems disproportionate to evaluate
these structures for their looks. Their
utility seems much more important.
Their use is a fact, a solution to some
problem, and this comes back to the
adamantine factuality of science,
even applied science.
Until lately art has been one thing
and everything else something else.
These structures are art and so is
everything made. The distinctions
have to be made within this assumption. The forms of art and of non-art
have always been connected; their
occurrences shouldnt be separated
as they have been. More or less, the
separation is due to collecting and
connoisseurship, from which art history developed. It is better to consider art and non-art one thing and
make the distinctions ones of degree.
Engineering forms are more general

and less particular than the forms of
the best art. They arent highly general though, as some well-designed
utensils are. Simple geometric forms
with little detail are usually both aesthetic and general.
The few good buildings, real architecture, are more specific than most
of the engineering projects. But most
buildings are far inferior to engineering projects, which with their definite
use and the supposed objectivity of
their solutions, have been allowed
a freedom and advancement not accorded to buildings and architecture.
Buildings only have to have space;
they are easy to construct. Commercialism dominates the engineers and
architects, and the best knowledge
isnt used.
Several of the buildings in this show
are only models: Louis Kahns City
Tower and an office building designed by Clive Entwhistle. They
are apparently feasible, but they
are inventive and probably wont
be built for some time. None of the
plain beauty of well-made things has
ever gotten into New Yorks housing
projects, and little has occurred in
the office buildings, which are mostly
either like consumer junk666 and
Socony-Mobile o r are absolutely
barrenbuildings built by Roth and
Uris. Drexler says at the end of his
preface that today we lack the political and economic apparatus that
would facilitate a truly responsible
use of our technology.
formas. Maillart disea puentes aerodinmicos que traen recuerdos de Arp;

los nuevos puentes alemanes son muy
rectos y angulares, uno de ellos sostenido por un marco en forma de A y otro
tan slo por pilares; los puentes George
Washington y Verrazano cuentan con
arcos dentro de sus pilares, lo que en el
caso del Verrazano resulta infortunado,
pues sus pilares se encuentran cubiertos
y todo parece de mampostera. La ingeniera es, a propsito, un arte bastante
annimo, segn indica el hecho de que
Othmar Ammann es casi desconocido.
El Verrazano, u otro de sus puentes en
Manhattan, deben llevar su nombre. A
pesar de esta subjetividad y este arte, se
nos hace injusto valorar estas estructuras a partir de su apariencia. Su utilidad
parece mucho ms importante. Su uso es
un hecho, una solucin a algn problema, y as regresamos a la adamantina
objetividad de la ciencia, aun la ciencia
aplicada.
Hasta hace poco, el arte ha sido una
cosa, y todo lo dems ha sido otra
cosa. Estas estructuras son arte, y todo
lo construido lo es tambin. Cualquier
distingo tiene que formularse dentro de
esta suposicin. Las formas del arte y del
no-arte han estado siempre enlazadas;
sus manifestaciones no deben separarse, como se ha hecho. La separacin se
origina en parte en los coleccionistas
y conocedores, de donde nace la historia del arte. Es preferible considerar
el arte y el no-arte como una sola cosa
y establecer luego diferenciaciones de
grado. Las formas de la ingeniera son
ms generales y menos particulares que
69
las formas que reviste mejor arte. Sin

embargo, no son altamente generales,
como algunos utensilios bien diseados.
Las formas geomtricas sencillas con
poco detalle suelen ser tanto estticas
y generales.
Los pocos buenos edificios, la arquitectura verdadera, son ms especficos
que la mayora de los proyectos de ingeniera. Pero la mayora de los edificios
son muy inferiores a los proyectos de
ingeniera, los cuales, con su uso explcito y la supuesta objetividad de sus
soluciones, han gozado de una libertad
y un desarrollo de avance prohibidos a
los edificios y la arquitectura. Los edificios slo tienen que utilizar el espacio;
son fciles de construir. Los ingenieros y
los arquitectos, dominados por el comercialismo, no ponen en juego sus mejores
conocimientos.
Varias de los edificios de esta exhibicin
son solamente modelos: la City Tower de
Louis Kahn y un edificio de oficinas diseado por Clive Entwhistle. Al parecer son
factibles, pero son imaginativos y probablemente no se construirn por mucho
tiempo. En los complejos habitacionales
de Nueva York no se obser va nada de
la belleza sencilla de las cosas bien hechas, y hay poco de ella en los edificios
de oficinas, que por lo general parecen
chabacaneras del consumismo666 y
Socony-Mobileo totalmente yermos
los construidos por Roth y Uris. Drexler
afirma, al final de su prefacio, que nos
falta hoy el aparato poltico y econmico
que facilitaran un uso verdaderamente
responsable de nuestra tecnologa.
Segn comprueba el anonimato de
Donald Judd Twentieth-century engineering

tectura. La fbrica de la compaia ferro-
esta elegancia no es deseable. Los arqui-
First published in: Arts Magazine, Month in
Publicado originalmente en: Ar ts Magazine,
tectos se inclinan por la elegancia y no
Review, October 1964, pp. 6064; reprinted
Month in Review, octubre de 1964, pgs.
son especialmente imaginativos. Gran
in: Halifax, pp. 137139; Mnster, pp.173175
6064; reimpresin en: Halifax, pgs. 137139;
parte de la ingeniera es mejor arquitec-
and pp. 138141 (in German); Paris, pp. 313
Mnster, pgs.173175 y pgs. 138141 (en ale-
tura que la mayor parte de la arquitec-
316 (in French).
mn); Paris, pgs. 313316 (en francs).
G en er a l Ur d a n eta Br id ge. La gua n a d e Ma r a c a ib o, Ven ezuela . 19 6 2 . R ein forc ed a n d

prestr essed c on c r et e; t ota l l en gt h : 5 . 5 m il es. R ic c a rd o Mora n d i.
Fullers domes cannot be architecture.

His lenticular Union Tank Car Company rebuilding plant (1959) in Baton
Rouge is an interesting building, and
thats architecture. Excessive though
genuine elegance also marred this
exhibition, which, like most Museum
of Modern Art shows, was overly dramatic, somewhat pretentious.
Some of the structures in the show are
from the twenties, thirties and forties,
such as the grain elevators in Kansas City, the hangar at Orly and the
Gowanus Elevated Parkway. Most are
later. I especially liked the Kitt Peak
solar observatory tower (1962), probably SOMs best structure; the cooling
tower (1949) in Carling, France, by
Entreprises de Gnie Civil de Lens;
the Gold-Zack Factory (1954) in Switzerland by Danzeisen and Voser; the
Theodor Heuss Bridge (1957) over
the Rhine, Department of Bridge Construction, Dsseldorf (this is the bridge
cantilevered from pairs of uprights);
the Severin Bridge (1959) at Cologne
(the one with the A-frame); the General Urdaneta Bridge (1962) in Venezuela, designed by Riccardo Morandi (this has a complex A-frame);
and the Meishan Dam (1956) on the
Huai River in China, which is a series
of cylinders. But highways and refineries and most of the structures are
spectacular.
la profesin, la sociedad guarda una

extraa actitud hacia los mejores proyectos realizados por ingenieros: son
buenos en s, pero no hay que vivir ni
tener una oficina en ellos. Un edificio
modesto, ornamentado de blanco y oro,
es digno de habitar. El nico arte aqu es
un concepto de la elegancia, una nocin
completamente pueril. Incluso las cosas
bastante bien diseadas, como algunos
automviles y edificios, son demasiado
elegantes, aunque elegantes de verdad,
como por ejemplo la mayora de los edificios de Skidmore, Owings y Merrill. Las
l diseo en Nueva Orleans (1959), es

un edificio interesante, y eso s es arquitectura. La elegancia excesiva aunque
genuina tambin ha afeado la presente
exhibicin, la cual, como la mayora de
las del M O M A , result excesivamente
dramtica y un poco pretenciosa.
Algunas de las estructuras de la exhibicin datan de los aos veintes, treintas
y cuarentas, tales como los elevadores
de granos de Kansas City, el hangar de
Orly y el Bulevar Elevado de Gowanus.
La mayora son posteriores. Me gustaron en especial la torre del observatorio
solar de Kitt Peak (1962), que es probablemente la mejor estructura de S O M ;
la torre de refrigeracin (1949) de Carling, Francia, realizada por Entreprises
de Gnie Civil de Lens; la Fbrica GoldZack (1954) en Suiza por Danzeisen y
Voser; el Puente Theodor Heuss (1957)
sobre el Rin, por el Departamento de
Construccin de Puentes de Dsseldorf
(el antes mencionado, sostenido por pares de pilares); el Puente Severin (1959)
de Colonia (el del marco en forma de A);
el Puente General Urdaneta (1962) de
Venezuela, diseado por Riccardo Morandi (con un marco en A complejo); y la
Represa Meishan (1956) del ro Huai en
China, que es una serie de cilindros. Pero
las carreteras, refineras y la mayora de
las estructuras son espectaculares.
estructuras de ingeniera prueban que
tura. Es bien conocido que los domos de

Buckminster Fuller no pueden ser arqui-
Assn. of Universities for Research in Astronomy, color observatory tower. Kitt Peak, Arizona. 1962.
R ein for ce d c on c re t e, st e el su pe rstruc tu re . En gi n eer /Ar ch itec t: Skidm or e, Ow in gs & M err ill.
As the anonymity of the profession

indicates, the society has an odd attitude toward the best projects built
by engineers. They are considered
fine for what they are but neither
something to live in nor to have an
office in. A moderate-looking building with a little gold and white trim
is fit for habitation. The only art that
is involved is an idea of elegance,
which is thoroughly puerile. Even
fairly well-designed things like some
cars and buildings are too elegant,
though genuinely so m ost Skidmore, Owings and Merrill buildings,
for example. The engineering structures prove that this elegance isnt
desirable. Architects are prone to elegance and are not especially imaginative. Much of the engineering is
better architecture than most architecture. Its well known that Buckminster
carrilera Union Tank Car Company, que
70
josiah mcelheny
Looking From:
Platforms for looking at art
(after Donald Judd in
Marfa, Texas)
If You Lived Here, Youd Be Home by

Now (Si vivieras aqu, ya estaras en casa)
es un proyecto de exhibicin inspirado en
parte por las Fundaciones Judd y Chinati
de Marfa y en exhibicin en el Museo de
Arte CCS Bard Hessel, del 25 de junio al
16 de diciembre. Curada conjuntamente
por el artista Josiah McElheny, el Director
Ejecutivo de CCS Bard, Tom Eccles, y
la curadora de la retrospectiva de Blinky
Palermo, Lynne Cooke, la exhibicin brinda
a los visitantes al museo una oportunidad de
contemplar obras de arte desde el punto de
vista de arreglos histricamente importantes
de muebles y la disposicin de asientos.
Concebida como complementaria a Blinky
Palermo: Retrospective 19641977
(exhibida simultneamente en las Galeras
CCS Bard y en Dia:Beacon), incluye una
serie de nuevas obras especficas al sitio
de exhibicin, realizadas por el artista
neoyorquino McElheny. Cooke, Eccles y
McElheny visitaron Marfa juntos en 2010,
y este encuentro influy en muchas de las
ideas y obras centrales de la exhibicin.
He aqu un recorrido en imgenes, con
subttulos de McElheny.
If you Lived Here, Youd be Home by Now, is an exhibition

project inspired in part by the Chinati and Judd
Foundations in Marfa and on view at ccsBard Hessel
Museum of Art, June 25 Through December16. Cocurated by artist Josiah McElheny, ccs Bard Executive
Director Tom Eccles, and Lynne Cooke, Curator,
Blinky Palermo retrospective, the exhibition offers
visitors to the museum a unique opportunity to view
artworks from the vantage point of historically important
furniture and seating arrangements.Conceived as a
complement to Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 19641977
(concurrently on view in the adjacent ccs Bard Galleries
and at Dia:Beacon), it includes a number of new sitespecific works by New York-based artist McElheny.
Cooke, Eccles, and McElheny visited Marfa together in
2010, which influenced a number of the central ideas
and works in the exhibition. Here is a brief snapshot
travelogue with captions by McElheny.
71
VIEW OF If you Lived Here, Youd Be Home by Now, including furniture

by R.M. Schindler [see the cobb house complex at the judd
foundation] V I S TA D E If You Lived Here, Youd Be Home by Now, con muebles hechos
VIEW OF John Chamberlain Thordis Barge 1980-81 and film work by

Chantal Ackerman Dans le miroir 1971 [see the chamberlain building
at the chinati foundation] V I S TA D E Thordis Barge, 1980-81, de John
por R.M. Schindler [VE R E L CO M P L E J O DE L A CASA COBB EN L A F UNDACI N J UDD ]
Chamerlain, Y DE obras flmicas de Chantal Ackerman Dans le miroir, 1971 [VE R E L EDI F ICIO
CHA M BE R L AIN EN L A F UNDACI N CHINAT I ]
VIEW FROM McElhenys Temporary Platform for Valerie

Jaudon, Rosmarie Trockel and Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011
V I S TA D esde Platform for Valerie Jaudon, Rosmarie Trockel
VIEW OF McElhenys Temporary Platform for Valerie Jaudon, Rosmarie Trockel

and Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011 and Rosmarie Trockels Menopause,
2005 [see judds work in the east room at the block,
judd foundation] V I S TA D E Temporary Platform for Valerie Jaudon, de McElheny,
y Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011, de McElheny
Rosmarie Trockel y Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011 y Menopause, de Rosmarie Trockel, 2005
[VE R L A OB R A DE J UDD EN L A SA L A ES T E DE L A M ANSANA , F UNDACI N J UDD ]
VIEW OF McElhenys Temporary Platform for Roni Horn (after Donald Judd), 2011
and Roni Horns This is me, This is You, 1999/2000 [see judds work in
the arena at the chinati foundation] V I S TA D E Temporary Platform for
Roni Horn (after Donald Judd), 2011, de McElheny and This Is Me,
VIEW FROM McElhenys Temporary Platform for Roni Horn

(after Donald Judd), 2011 V I S TA D E S D E Temporary Platform for Roni Horn
This Is You, 1999/2000, de Roni Horn [VE R OB R AS DE J UDD EN
(after Donald Judd), 2011, de McElheny
L A A R ENA EN L A F UNDACI N CHINAT I ]
72
VIEW OF McElhenys Temporary platform for Jason Simon (After Donald Judd),
2011 and Jason Simon Vera, 2003 [see judds work in the kitchen/
two story building, part of the block at the judd
foundation] V I S TA D E Temporary Platform for Jason Simon (after Donald Judd), 2011,
VIEW OF McElhenys Temporary platform for Michel Auder (After Donald Judd),
2011 and Michel Auder Chasing the Dragon, 1971-1987 [see judds work
in the library, part of the block at the judd foundation]
V I S TA D E Temporary Platform for Michel Auder (after Donald Judd) de McElheny, 2011, Y Chasing
de McElheny Y Jason Simon Vera, 2003 [VE R OB R AS DE J UDD EN L A COCINA / EDI F ICIO
the Dragon, de Michel Auder, 197187 [VER OBRAS DE JUDD EN LA BIBLIOTECA, PARTE DE LA
DE DOS P ISOS , PA R T E DE L A M ANSANA EN L A F UNDACI N J UDD ]
MANSANA EN LA FUNDACIN JUDD]
VIEW OF McElhenys Prison Bench for Robert Gober (After Donald Judd), 2011
[see judds work in back of the arena at the chinati
foundation and outside of the block at the judd
foundation] V I S TA D E Prison Bench for Robert Gober (after Donald Judd), de McElheny,
VIEW FROM McElhenys Prison Bench for Robert Gober

(After Donald Judd), 2011 and Robert Gober, Prison Window,
1992. Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College V I S TA
2011 [VE R OB R AS DE J UDD DE T R S DE L A A R ENA EN L A F UNDACI N CHINAT I Y A L

EX T E R IO R DE L A M ANSANA EN L A F UNDACI N J UDD ]
D E S D E Prison Bench for Robert Gober (after Donald Judd), de McElheny, 2011 y
Robert Gober, Prison Window, 1992. Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College
JOSIAH USING Temporary Platform for Valerie Jaudon, Rosmarie Trockel and
Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011 J O S I A H U S A N D O Temporary Platform for Valerie
JOSIAH USING Temporary platform for Jason Simon

(After Donald Judd), 2011 J O S I A H U S A N D O Temporary Platform
Jaudon, Rosmarie Trockel y Andrea Zittel (after Donald Judd), 2011
for Jason Simon (after Donald Judd), 2011
73
201112
Artists in
Residence
Artists
in
Residence
2010-2011
Artistas en
Residencia
Justin Almquist
United States
Estados Unidos
Karole Armitage
United States
Estados Unidos
Frank Benson
United States
Estados Unidos
David Fenster
United States
Estados Unidos
Rob Fischer
United States
Estados Unidos
Karl Haendel
United States
Estados Unidos
Nick Herman
United States
Estados Unidos
Bill Morrison
United States
Estados Unidos
Ester Partegs
Spain
Esspaa
Erin Shirreff
Canada
Canad
Amy Sillman
United States
Estados Unidos
Dirk Stewen
Germany
Alemania
Applications for the artist in residence program will next be reviewed

in April 2012. For more information
about the program, please visit
www.chinati.org.
Las solicitudes para participar en el
programa de artista en residencia sern
revisadas prximamente en abril de
2012. Para mayores informes, favor de
visitar www.chinati.org.
Artistas en Residencia
Marc Ganzglass
J e a n - B a pt i s t e
September October, 2010
Bernadet
Septiembre Octubre de 2010
November December, 2010

Noviembre Diciembre de 2010
B i ll M o rr i s o n
N i c k H e rm a n
January February, 2011
March April, 2011
Enero Febrero de 2011
Marzo Abril de 2011
Er i n S h i rr e ff
May July, 2011
Mayo Julio de 2011
Artists in Residence 2010-2011 Artistas en Residencia
Marc Ganzglass
Institute in Copenhagen, captured

the creation, in a flask of pure water rhythmically buffeted by sound
waves, of a single photon (or point)
of light. The jerky footage recording
this tiny, epochal creation, this microBig Bang, is like a home movie made
of light by light. The second video
depicted a cruder, if time-honored,
experiment: the attempt by a pair
of people to locate buried electricity
lines using metal dowsers or divining
rods. The third video, filmed in Marfa,
showed a freight train passing in the
background, while in the foreground,
stalled on the tracks, sat a hunk
of sleek industrial material whose
purpose or function was difficult to
tell a section of modern windmill,
bound for a wind farm.
Installed in the Locker Plants front
room was an object that was at once
September October, 2010

Septiembre Octubre de 2010
In conjunction with the 2010 Chinati

weekend, artist in residence Marc
Ganzglass opened a two-part exhibition on October 710. Entitled Transmission Tower Time, the show occupied the Locker Plant and the Ice Plant
on East Oak Street.
Entering the Locker Plant through a
door in the courtyard, visitors came
upon the first of three video installations as a wave of sound permeated
the space. A Single Point of Light,
made using high-speed film footage
from an experiment at the Niels Bohr
Conjuntamente con el Fin de Semana

Chinati (2010), el Artista en Residencia
Marc Ganzglass estren una exhibicin
bipartita del 7 al 20 de octubre de este
ao. La exhibicin, intitulada Transmission Tower Time, ocup el Locker Plant y
el Ice Plant en la calle East Oak.
Al entrar al Locker Plant por la puerta del
patio central, los visitantes encontraban
la primera de tres instalaciones de video
mientras una onda sonora penetraba en
el espacio. A Single Point of Light, hecho
con pelcula de alta velocidad tomada de
un experimento realizado en el Instituto
76
Niels Bohr, captaba la creacin, en una

redoma llena de agua agitada por ondas sonoras rtmicas, de un solo fotn (o
punto) de luz. Las imgenes entrecortadas que mostraban esta creacin en
miniatura, este Big Bang microscpico,
son como una pelcula casera hecha de
luz por la luz. El segundo video presentaba un experimento tradicional pero
ms crudo: el intento por parte de dos
personas de encontrar cables elctricos
enterrados utilizando varitas de zahor.
El tercer video, filmado en Marfa, mostraba, en segundo trmino, el paso de
un tren de carga, mientras que en primer
trmino, inmvil sobre las vas, se apreciaba una masa de material industrial,
cuyo propsito o funcin resultaba difcil
de discernir una seccin de un molino
de viento moderno destinada para una
granja de viento.
Instalado en la sala delantera del Locker
Marc Ganzglass
a ubiquitous and invisible part of the

contemporary landscape: a full-scale
transmission tower built from scratch
by the artist, in two pieces and lying
on its side. Next to the tower was a
small table, held together only by
gravity and torsion. On the table lay
a rifle and box of ammunition, while
at the far end of the room a target in a
box hung on the wall. The installation
offered the chance to peruselive,
as it weretwo more apparatus for
the circulation of energy of the sort
employed or depicted in the videos.
The works at the Locker Plant, each
in their own way, posited, presented,
and puzzled over the elementsthe
elementals o f transmission, of energy on the move. Ganzglass offered
an alternate way of considering these
mysteries down the street at the Ice
Plant. On view was The Copenha-
gen Interpretation, a new iteration

of a work produced in 2009 in Denmark. In the center of the space, a
new Mercedes sedan pumped out
Albert Aylers 1964 free-jazz classic
The Copenhagen Tapes while neon
undercarriage lights bumped along
rhythmically.
Marc Ganzglass received his M FA
from Cranbrook Academy of Art in
1999. Recent solo exhibitions include Middle Sized Aggregates at
Martos Gallery in New York (2010);
Ddsnske at Bastard, Oslo and Vol
dOrgeuil with OEen Group, Copenhagen (both 2009); and Liu Thinks
Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is Innocent., Parkers Box, Brooklyn (2008).
Ganzglass currently lives in New
York.
Plant haba un objeto que forma parte

omnipresente e invisible del paisaje contemporneo: una torre de transmisin tamao natural, construida por el artista,
consistente en dos piezas acostadas de
lado. Junto a la torre haba una mesita,
mantenida intacta nicamente por la gravedad y la torsin. Encima de sta estaba
un rifle y una caja de balas, y al fondo del
cuarto colgaba un blanco en la pared.
Esta instalacin ofreca la oportunidad
de obser var, o vivir, otros dos aparatos que circulan energa del tipo que se
emplea o representa en los videos.
Estas obras del Locker Plant, cada una
a su manera, postulaban y suscitaban
preguntas sobre los elementos y los
fundamentos de la transmisin, de la
energa en movimiento. En otro edificio
de la misma calle, en el Ice Plant, Ganzglass nos ofreca una manera alternativa de considerar estos misterios. All se
77
exhiba The Copenhagen Interpretation,

una nueva iteracin de una obra creada
el ao pasado en Dinamarca. Desde el
centro del espacio emanaba, de un Mercedes nuevo, la clsica cancin free-jazz
de Albert Ayler (1964) The Copenhagen
Tapes, mientras pulsaban rtmicamente
luces de nen debajo del auto, al comps
de la msica.
Marc Ganzglass obtuvo su Maestra
en Bellas Artes de la Academia de Arte
Cranbrook en 1999. Sus exhibiciones
recientes incluyen Middle Sized Aggregates en la Galera Martos de Nueva
York; Ddsnske en Bastard, Oslo y Vol
dOrgeuil con OEen Group, Copenhague
(ambos de 2009); y Liu Thinks Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Is Innocent., Parkers
Box, Brooklyn (2008). Ganzglass vive
actualmente en Nueva York.
J e a n - B a pt i s t e B e r n a d e t
signify abstract painting, i.e., big

brushy brushwork, gestural sleight-ofhand, etc. Instead his aim is to let the
painting itself direct the process by
which it is made. An initiating mark
or color acts as a hypothesis of sorts,
and one provisional statement leads
to another, then another. There is a
skepticism built in to the process, a
humorous dubiety and doubt. Sometimes the artists work features texts:
word-paintings, paintings of words.
The texts, usually but not always in
English, take the forms of slogans,
injunctions, semi-abject confessions:
HA L O , VICIOUS , HO L A CON Q UIS TADO R , I W I L L R UN A F T E R YOU , BAC K T O R EA L I T Y, I
November December, 2010

Noviembre Diciembre de 2010
The French artist Jean-Baptiste Bernadet showed a wide array of new

paintings at the Locker Plant in December. Bernadets paintings are
largely abstract h e may start with
some notion of subject, an idea about
landscape, for example, but there is
no attempt to portray or represent.
Similarly, he tries to avoid those
marks and markers that have come to
El artista francs Jean-Baptiste Bernadet exhibi una amplia variedad de

pinturas nuevas en el Locker Plant en
diciembre. Las pinturas de Bernadet
tienden hacia la abstraccin: tal vez
partan de una nocin de tema, una
idea sobre el paisaje, por ejemplo
pero no existe el intento de delinear
o representar. Por otra parte, el artista rehye las marcas y los marca78
dores que han llegado a caracterizar

a la pintura abstracta, a saber, las
grandes pinceladas, la prestidigitacin
del gesto, etc. Su objetivo es ms bien
dejar que la pintura misma dirija el
proceso de su hechura. Se plantea inicialmente una marca o color que sirva
de hiptesis, y de ah se avanza de un
enunciado provisional a otro, a otro,
un proceso que implica cierto cinismo,
cierta cualidad humorstica de duda.
A veces aparecen textos: pinturas con
palabras, pinturas de palabras. Los
textos, usualmente pero no siempre en
ingls, pueden ser eslogans, mandatos
o confesiones semi-humildes: H A L O ,
V I C I O U S , H O L A C O N Q U I S TA D O R ,
I WILL RUN AFTER YOU, BACK TO
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet
WAN T M USC L ES . Some of these

text-snippets are cropped from pop
songs, and their vacuity is perhaps
part of the attractionBernadet has
compared himself to a foreign rock
musician singing in English. Thus the
paintings exhort, croon, bemoan,
and babble. The paint handling itself, like any good pop song, is equal
parts painstaking exactitude and unabashed glop.
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet was born in
Paris in 1978 and educated at the
cole Suprieure des Beaux-Arts in
Rennes, France, and the cole Nationale Suprieure des Arts VisuelsLa Cambre in Brussels. He has participated in many group shows since
2000 at such venues as W IE L S ,

Brussels (2009 and 2010), Galerie
Crvecoeur, Paris (2009), Muse des
Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing (2005), and
Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels
(2004). He has had solo exhibitions
at, among others, Maes & Matthys,
Antwerp, Baronian-Francey, Brussels
(2010); Galerie les Filles du Calvaire,
Brussels, Chapelle des Calvairiennes,
Mayenne, France, and Galerie
Xprssns, Hamburg (2008); and Konsortium, Dusseldorf (2007). Bernadet
lives in Brussels.
R E A L I T Y, I WA N T M U S C L E S . Algunos
de estos fragmentos estn sacados de
canciones populares, y en su vacuidad
reside tal vez parte de su atraccin
Bernadet se compara a s mismo con
un msico de rock que canta en ingls.
As, sus pinturas exhortan, entonan, se
quejan y parlotean. La realizacin de la
pintura, al igual que una buena cancin
pop, involucra tanto precisin y exactitud como desenfadada chapucera.
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet naci en Pars
en 1978. Asisti a la cole Suprieure des Beaux-Arts en Rennes, Francia
y a la cole Nationale Suprieure des
Arts Visuel-La Cambre, en Bruselas. Ha
participado en muchas exhibiciones
grupales desde 2000 en sitios como
79
W I E L S , Bruselas (2009 y 2010), Galerie Crvecoeur, Pars (2009), Muse des

Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing (2005) y Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels (2004)
y ha exhibido solo en Maes & Matthys,
Amberes; Baronian-Francey, Bruselas
(2010); Galerie les Filles du Calvaire,
Bruselas; Chapelle des Calvairiennes,
Mayenne, Francia, Galerie Xprssns,
Hamburgo (2008) y Konsortium, Dusseldorf (2007), entre otros. Bernadet
vive en Bruselas.
B i ll M o rr i s o n
films to accompany live performances

of music by John Adams, Steve Reich,
Michael Gordon, and others. His films
have been broadcast on P BS , the Sundance Channel, and featured at film
festivals such as Sundance, Rotterdam, San Francisco, and Edinburgh.
His collaborations with New Yorks
performance ensemble Ridge Theatre (where he is a founding member)
have been recognized with two Bessie awards for excellence in theatrical design as well as a Village Voice
Obie award in 2002. Morrison
has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Foundation for
Contemporary Performance Arts, the
2004 NEA Creativity Grant, and Creative Capital. In 2009 he created the
film sequences that punctuated Wallace Shawns play Grasses of a Thousand Colors, which had its premiere at
Londons Royal Court Theatre.
January February, 2011

Enero Febrero de 2011
Bill Morrison is an award-winning

artist and filmmaker, with eight titles
in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art including Light
Is Calling, Decasia, and The Film of
Her. His films and videos have been
screened in theatres, museums, and
concert halls worldwide including
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts, Royal Festival Hall,
Tate Modern, Whitney Museum of
American Art, M ASS MoCA, and
the Wexner Center. Often working
in collaboration with musicians and
composers, Morrison has created
Bill Morrrison es un artista y cineasta

con ocho obras en la coleccin permanente del Museo de Arte Moderno,
incluyendo Light Is Calling, Decasia y
The Film of Her. Sus pelculas e ideos
han sido exhibidos internacionalmente
en cines, museos y salas de concierto,
entre ellos Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center
for the Performing Arts, Royal Festival
Hall, Tate Modern, Whitney Museum of
American Art, M A S S MoCA y Wexner
Center. Morrison colabora frecuentemente con msicos y compositores y
ha creado pelculas para acompaar
la ejecucin en vivo de msica de John
80
Adams, Steve Reich, Michael Gordon y

otros. Sus filmes han sido transmitidos
por los canales televisivos P B S y Sundance y han participado en festivales
como los de Sundance, Rotterdam, San
Francisco y Edimburgo. Sus colaboraciones con Ridge Theatre, de Nueva
York, del cual es miembro fundador,
han sido galardonadas con dos premios Bessie por su diseo teatral y un
premio Obie del Village Voice. Morrison ha sido becario de la Fundacin
Guggenheim, la Foundation for Contemporar y Performance Arts, la N E A
(en 2004) y Creative Capital. En 2009
Morrison cre las secuencias flmicas
utilizadas en el drama Grasses of a
Thousand Colors, de Wallace Shawn,
que debut en el Royal Court Theatre
de Londres.
The Miners Hymns, su obra ms reciente, en una elega por el fin de la
industria minera en el noreste de In-
Bill Morrison
The Miners Hymns, Morrisons most

recent piece, is an elegiac account,
composed of archival film footage, of
the demise of the coal mining industry in northeast England. The score
is by the Icelandic composer Johann
Johannsson. The film moves seamlessly back and forth in time, blending early and mid twentieth-century
clips of coal miners and their families
at work and play with tense footage
of the Thatcher governments violent
suppression of the coal miners strike,
in 198485. In the wake of the failed
strike the miners lifeways began to
disappear; aerial shots of the area today show shopping malls sitting atop
the former mines. Without downplaying the perilous and backbreaking
nature of the miners work, Morrisons
film seeks to reverse a historical erasure. It is a valediction for a way of
life that was broken and eradicated.
The film had its premiere at Durham

Cathedral last year; it opens at Film
Forum in New York in February 2012.
Decasia, screened in Marfa in February 2011 at the Crowley Theatre,
along with a selection of additional
films, is a 2002 work made from
found footage, all of it an advanced
stage of mesmerizing decay. Morrison edits this footage in an almost
symphonic way, with periods of crescendo and decrescendo, agitation
and rest. The movie features an original score by Michael Gordon and is
often shownperformedlive. J.
Hobermann, in the Village Voice, described Decasia as the most widely
acclaimed American avant-garde film
of the fin-de-sicle.
glaterra. La alucinante partitura es del

compositor islands Johann Johannsson. El film se desplaza fluidamente entre el presente y el pasado, mezclando
escenas de los mineros y sus familias de
mediados del siglo veinte con otras que
muestran la huelga minera de 1984-85
y la violenta supresin de las mismas
por parte del gobierno de Thatcher. Tras
el fracaso de la huelga, la tradicin
minera comenz a desaparecer, como
comprueba la fotografa area reciente de centros comerciales que ocupan
sitios antes ocupados por las minas.
Sin restar importancia al peligro ni a
la ardua labor del minero, esta obra
de Morrison intenta revertir lo que la
historia borr, reivindicando una modalidad de vida que qued erradicada.
La pelcula se estren en la Catedral
de Durham el ao pasado, y tendr su
apertura en el Film Forum de Nueva
York en febrero de 1012.
81
Decasia (2002), proyectada junto con

otras pelculas en Marfa en febrero
de 2011, se compone de escenas encontradas, ya filmadas y en un estado
avanzado de deterioro. Morrison edita
estas secuencias de una manera casi
sinfnica, con periodos alternados de
crescendo y decrescendo, agitacin y
descanso. Con msica original de Michael Gordon, esta pelcula se exhibe
se ejecuta en vivo. Escribiendo en el
peridico Village Voice, J. Hobermann
describe a Decasia como la pelcula
americana avant-garde ms aclamada
de finales del siglo veinte.
N i c k H e rm a n
body, Hermans work combines a variety of traditional as well as found

materials with hand-made techniques
and an ironists dry wit.
A black and white, photographic,
lunar-like landscape is actually a
sculpted frieze surprisingly made
from fat solids. In his words, this type
of work explores how material metaphors conflate the desire for peace
and prosperity with clich and often
grotesque depictions of abundance.
In another series of works, carefully
hand-tied nets in various colors and
sizes transform these utilitarian forms
into works with subtle and poignant
properties they hang and droop,
March April, 2011

Marzo Abril de 2011
Nick Herman is a Los Angeles-based

artist, writer, and editor. His work
takes many forms i ncluding sculpture, photographs, prints, paintings,
and books a nd explores the relationship between formal structural vocabularies and the natural and manmade landscape. Often situated in
the world of myth yet essentially of the
Nick Herman es un artista, escritor y

redactor que vive en Los Angeles. Sus
obras cobran diversas formas, incluyendo la escultura, fotografas, grabados,
pinturas y libros y exploran la relacin
entre los vocabularios estructurales formales y el paisaje natural o hecho por
la mano del hombre. A menudo situada
dentro del mundo del mito, aunque esen82
cialmente corporal, la obra de Herman

combina una variedad de materiales tradicionales y encontrados con tcnicas
manuales y un humor irnico.
Un paisaje fotogrfico, en blanco y negro, que recuerda a la luna, es en realidad un friso esculpido hecho de slidos
de grasa. En las palabras del artista,
esta obra explora cmo las metforas
materiales equiparan el deseo de paz
y prosperidad con representaciones
comunes y muchas veces grotescas de
la abundancia. En otra serie de obras,
redes cuidadosamente atadas a mano en
varios colores y tamaos transforman
estas formas utilitarias en obras con
propiedades sutiles y conmovedoras
Nick Herman
revealing their human inconsistencies.

White on white collage works have
impasto-like surfaces; close examination might discover eroticized figures
lurking just below. Hermans exhibition also featured a group of roughly
formed carcass or bone shapes made
from white plaster, each inserted with
a device traditionally used for calling animals. There is a dark humor
in these juxtapositions, part art and
part science experiment. Even useless
data, such as the white noise or pictorial properties of television static,
become a subject worthy of contemplation.
Herman has exhibited at the Sculpture

Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, and
Peter Blum Gallery in New York. His
work was a part of Portugal Arte (Lisbon) and he exhibited a solo project
at L A > < A R T in summer 2011. Herman has an M FA in sculpture from
Yale University and a BA in religious
studies from Macalester College. He
is also the publisher of AN T E P R O J EC T S .
cuelgan cadas y decadas, revelando

sus inconsistencias humanas.
Collages de blanco sobre blanco tienen
superficies como impasto, pero al examinarlos ms de cerca tal vez descubramos figuras erotizadas agazapadas por
debajo. Herman tambin incluy en su
exhibicin un grupo de figuras toscas en
forma de cuerpos muertos de animales
o de huesos, hechas de yeso blanco, en
cada una de las cuales se ha insertado
pictricas de la esttica en la pantalla de

televisin, se convierten en temas dignos
de la contemplacin.
Herman ha exhibido su obra en el Centro
Escultural, Parque Escultural Scrates,
la Galera Peter Blum en Nueva York, y
Portugal Arte (Lisboa), y se exhibi un
proyecto solo en L A > < A R T en el verano de 2011. Herman obtuvo su Maestra
en Bellas Artes con especializacin en
escultura de la Universidad Yale y su
un dispositivo usado tradicionalmente
Licenciatura en estudios religiosos de
para llamar a los animales. Hay un hu-
Macalester College. Es tambin editor
mor negro en estas yuxtaposiciones, que
de A N T E P R O J E C T S .
parecen ser a la vez arte y experimento cientfico. Incluso los datos intiles,
como el ruido blanco o las propiedades
83
Er i n S h i rr e ff
new work, all cast objects, at the end

of her stay. Shirreffs medium is film,
sculpture, and photographymore
specifically the fusing of these methods (e.g., a photograph of a sculpture; a video of a still image). Shirreff creates formal portraits of objects
she has constructed or sculpted to
resemble architectural fragments,
geological artifacts, or prehistoric
specimens. Roden Crater (2009),
her haunting fifteen minute single-
May July, 2011

Mayo Julio de 2011
Erin Shirreff was born in British Columbia and lives and works in New
York City. In residence at Chinati
during June and July, she exhibited
Erin Shirreff naci en Columbia Britnica y vive y trabaja actualmente en

Nueva York. Durante su residencia en
Chinati en junio y julio, ella exhibi
84
nuevas obras al final de su tiempo

aqu. Shirreff trabaja en las reas de
film, escultura y fotografa ms especficamente la fusin de estos tres
mtodos (por ejemplo, una fotografa
de una escultura, un video de una
imagen esttica). La artista crea retratos formales de objetos que ella ha
construido o esculpido de manera que
parezcan fragmentos arquitectnicos,
artefactos geolgicos o especmenes
prehistricos. Roden Crater, (2009),
Erin Shirreff
channel video loop, composed

through re-photographing (hundreds
of times, under changing yet controlled light conditions) a single
found image of James Turrells grand
project, was acquired last year by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her
work was included in recent exhibitions at MoMA P.S.1, Sculpture Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Ballroom Marfa, White Flag Projects
in St. Louis, and The Power Plant in
Toronto. She recently mounted a solo

exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum,
MCA Denver, and Lisa Cooley in
New York in summer 2011. Her work
is also included in the permanent
collections of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, and the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, NY.
su alucinante video de canal nico,

de 15 minutos de duracin, realizado
mediante la re-fotografa (cientos de
veces, bajo cambiantes condiciones de
iluminacin) de una sola imagen del
gran proyecto de James Turrell, fue
adquirido el ao pasado por el Museo
Metropolitano de Arte. Su obra se incluy tambin en exhibiciones recientes
en el Centro Escultural P.S.1 del MoMA,
el Museo Metropolitano de Arte, Ballroom Marfa, Proyectos Bandera Blanca
85
de St. Louis, y The Power Plant de

Toronto. Tuvo una exhibicin sola en
el Instituto de Arte Contemporneo de
Filadelfia, y exhibi en el Museo de
Arte de Aspen, el MCA en Denver y
Lisa Cooley en el verano de 2011. Su
obra aparece tambin en las colecciones permanentes del Museo de Bellas
Artes, Houston y el Museo Solomon R
Guggenheim, Nueva York.
Benefit Prints
R upert D eese
A phros , 2 0 11
Drypoint/Punta seca 27 x 19 inches/pulgadas, on Magnani Acquerello, 300 lb. Hot Press/sobre Magnani Acquerello, impresin al calor, 300 libras
Printed by/Impresin de Manneken Press Signed and numbered by the artist/Firmados y numerados por el artista Edition of 100/Edicin de 100 grabados
New York-based artist Rupert Deese

has created an edition exclusively for
Chinatis 2011 new and renewing
upper-level members ($1,000+ level). Primarily a painter, Deese evokes
organic forms in their most abstract
sense. Spare and meticulous, his
paintings and works on paper employ themes of nature and landscape
inspired in part by his childhood in
Upland, California, where Rupert
was born in 1952. Deese received
his M FA and BA degrees from the
University of California at Santa Barbara and was Artist in Residence at
the Chinati Foundation in 1994. His
work has been shown at the Aldrich
Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut; Nevada Museum of Art,
Reno; and New York State Museum,
Albany, among others, and is included in the permanent collections
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, and the Nevada Museum
of Art, Reno.
Six different copper plates were used

to print the edition, with the artist
reworking the plates into new states
after approximately 58 impressions.
Each is printed from a single plate.
La presente edicin se prepar utilizan-
evoca formas orgnicas en su sentido
For more information about membership and
Para mayores informes sobre la membresa y
ms abstracto. Sus pinturas y obras en
benefit prints see page 96.
los mltiplos en beneficio de Chinati, vea la p-
El artista neoyorquino Rupert Deese

ha creado una edicin exclusivamente
para quienes en 2011 se afilian a la
Fundacin Chinati o renuevan su membresa en ella (nivel de $1,000 o supe-
do seis diferentes placas de cobre, las

cuales fueron modificadas por el artista
para darles nueva forma despus de
aproximadamente 58 impresiones.
rior). Deese, primordialmente un pintor,
papel, parcas y meticulosas, tratan te-
gina 96.
mas de la naturaleza y el paisaje, inspirados en parte por la infancia del artista en Upland, California, donde naci
en 1952. Deese obtuvo su Licenciatura
y su Maestra en Bellas Artes de la Universidad de California en Santa Barbara y fue Artista en Residencia de la Fundacin Chinati en 1994. Ha exhibido su
obra en el Museo Aldrich de Arte Contemporneo, en Connecticut; el Museo
de Arte de Nevada, en Reno; y el Museo
del Estado de Nueva York, en Albany,
entre otros, y sus obras estn incluidas
en las colecciones permanentes del Museo Metropolitano de Arte, Nueva York,
y el Museo de Arte de Nevada, Reno.
86
Ediciones en beneficio
Z o e L e o nard
june 3 , frame 3 0 , 2 0 11
Silver Gelatin Print/Grabado en plata sobre gelatina

11 x 14 inches / pulgadas
Zoe Leonard has created this edition

for Chinati and its members. The gelatin print is taken from a new series
of photographs of the sun, shown
recently in the exhibition Available
Light, October 2011, along with a
room-sized camera obscura, at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne.
In Leonard's words: I am interested
in the abstract possibilities of photography. By choosing a subject which is
impossible to depict, Im exploring a
way of depicting sight, experience,
and the actual process of perception.
Leonard has exhibited internationally
since the mid-1980s. Her installation
You see I am here after all, comprised
of several thousand collected postcards of Niagara Falls, was on view at
Dia:Beacon from September 2008 until January 2011. Leonard performed a
spoken word companion piece, This
is where I was, as part of Chinatis
annual October weekend last year.
Leonard was born in Liberty, New

York, and lives and works in Brooklyn.
She is the Co-chair of Photography at
the Milton Avery Graduate School of
the Arts, Bard College. Her exhibitions include the Wexner Center for
the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2007);
Philadelphia Museum of Art (1998);
Kunsthalle Basel (1997); Vienna Secession (1997) and the Renaissance
Society at the University of Chicago
(1993). A 2007 retrospective exhibition at the Fotomuseum Winterthur,
Winterthur, Switzerland, traveled to
the Museo Reina Sofa, Madrid, the
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich,
and the Museum Moderner Kunst
Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna. Leonard will
have a solo exhibition at the Camden
Arts Center, London in 2012.
Zoe Leonard ha creado esta edicin para

Chinati y sus miembros de nivel superior.
La obra est sacada de una nueva serie
de fotografas del sol, exhibidas recientemente en la exhibicin Available Light
(Luz disponible), en octubre de 2011, junto con una cmara oscura tamao sala,
en la Galera Gisela Capitain, Colonia.
Me intereso por las posibilidades abstractas de la fotografa. Al seleccionar
un tema imposible de representar, estoy
explorando una manera de transmitir la
vista, la experiencia y el proceso mismo
de la percepcin.
Leonard ha exhibido a nivel internacional desde mediados de los ochentas. Su
instalacin You see I am here after all (Ves
que estoy aqu despus de todo), compuesta de varios miles de postales de las
cataratas del Nigara, se exhibi en Dia
Beacon de septiembre de 2008 a enero
Leonard naci en Liberty, estado de

Nueva York, y vive y trabaja en la ciudad
de Nueva York. Es Codirectora de Fotografa en la facultad de posgrado Milton
Aver y Graduate School of the Arts, de
Bard College. Sus exhibiciones incluyen
el Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus,
Ohio (2007); Philadelphia Museum of Art
(1998); Kunsthalle Basel (1997); Vienna
Secession (1997); y la Renaissance Society de la Universidad de Chicago (1993).
Una retrospectiva de 2007 estrenada en
el Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur,
Suiza, fue exhibida posteriormente en el
Museo Reina Sofa, Madrid, la Pinakothek
der Moderne, Munich y el Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Viena. Leonard
tendr una exhibicin sola en el Camden
Arts Center de Londres en 2012.
Para mayores informes sobre la membresa y
de 2011. Leonard ejecut una obra com-
For more information about membership and
los mltiplos en beneficio de Chinati, vea la p-
paera hablada, This is where I was (Aqu
benefit prints see page 96.
gina 96.
es donde estuve yo) como parte del Fin de

Semana anual en Chinati el ao pasado.
87
and the Stdtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus & Kunstbau, Munich.

On Sunday morning of October
Weekend, the Chinati and Judd
Foundations will host a breakfast at
Casa Perez, Donald Judds ranch at
the base of Pinto Canyon. This modest house and surrounding structures
contain works of art and furniture by
Judd, Mexican-style ranch furniture,
and artifacts from the artists private
collection. Nestled into the mountains, the ranch offers the opportunity for a great excursion into the surrounding West Texas landscape.
Chinati Weekend 2011

Fin de semana en Chinati, 2011
Galerie im Lenbachhaus & Kunstbau de

esa ciudad.
El domingo 9 de octubre, por la maana, las Fundaciones Chinati y Judd ofrecern un desayuno en la Casa Prez, el
rancho de Donald Judd en el Can Pinto. Esta modesta casa y las estructuras
que la rodean contienen obras de arte
y muebles creados por Judd, muebles
rsticos al estilo mexicano y artefactos
sacados de la coleccin privada del artista. La visita a este interesante rancho
ofrece una fascinante excursin por el
paisaje del oeste de Texas.
Chinati celebrar su 25 aniversario con

un evento especial durante el fin de semana del 7 al 9 de octubre, con exhibiciones de obras de Hiroshi Sugimoto y
Jean Arp.
Las fotografas de Sugimoto en blanco y
negro del ocano, una sala cine vaca,
una borrosa obra maestra de la arquitectura modernista, o un diorama del
Museo de Historia Natural se han convertido en ejemplos clsicos de su gnero. Chinati es el primer lugar donde se
exhibir una larga secuencia (24 obras)
de la serie de las pagodas.
Se trata de 24 pagodas de vidrio, de
seis pulgadas de altura, montadas en
un alto pero delgado pedestal japons
de madera de color claro. Las esculturas
se componen de tres piezas individuales de vidrio: un cubo, una esfera y una
pirmide. En el centro de cada esfera
aparece una fotografa, un paisaje marino nico, cuya instalacin aprovecha
al mximo la luz y la arquitectura del
Jea n Arp, La Po up ee d e D em ete r, 1961. Stift un g Ha n s Arp un d Sop hie Tae ub er -Arp e .V. , R ol an d sec k.
Chinati will host a 25th anniversary

weekend on October 7th9th and
highlighting the event will be special
exhibitions by Hiroshi Sugimoto and
Jean Arp.
Sugimotos black and white photographs of the ocean, an empty movie
palace, a blurry modernist architectural masterpiece, or a diorama from
the Museum of Natural History have
become classics of the form. Chinati
is the first place where a large selection (twenty-four works) from a new
series of sculptures will be shown.
Chinatis exhibition will consist of
twenty-four glass pagodas, each six
inches high and presented on a tall
yet slim, light-colored Japanese wood
pedestal. The sculptures are formed
of three individual, stacked glass
pieces: a cube, a sphere, and a pyramid. In the center of each sphere is
a sealed photograph a miniature
seascape, each unique and installed
to take full advantage of the light and
architecture of Chinatis exhibition
space.
Chinati will also present an exhibition
of work by French/German-born artist Jean Arp, a sculptor and a founder
of the Dada movement, whose pioneering works in marble, bronze, and
plaster brought a unique elegance to
biomorphic abstraction. Arps art was
concrete w hole three-dimensional
forms that often referred to the body
without representing it. Writing of his
1963 exhibition at the Sidney Janis
Gallery, Donald Judd stated, Arps
work is never unspecific, although it
is unusually general, even empty in
a way. The emptiness suggests that if
you are interested in a thing it is interesting, and if you are not it is not. That
isnt as obvious as it sounds.
Chinati artist in residence Justin
Almquist will exhibit new work in the
Ice Plant. A Texas native who has
lived and worked in Munich for the
past five years, Almquist has shown
recent work at the Munich Kunstverein
el Munich Kunstverein y la Stdtische
espacio de exhibicin de Chinati.

Chinati presentar tambin una exhibicin de obras del artista francsalemn Jean Arp, un escultor y fundador del movimiento Dad, cuyas obras
innovadoras en mrmol, bronce y yeso
trajeron una innegable elegancia a la
abstraccin biomrfica. El arte de Arp
era concretoformas tridimensionales
que a menudo aludan al cuerpo sin representarlo. Sobre una exhibicin del
artista de 1963 en la Galera Sidney
Janis, Donald Judd escribi: La obra
de Arp no es nunca inespecfica, aunque suele ser general, y hasta vaca en
cierto modo. Este vaco sugiere que si
uno se interesa en algo, ese algo es interesante, y si no, no. Eso no resulta tan
obvio como parece.
Justin Almquist, artista en residencia
de Chinati, exhibir obras nuevas en el
Ice Plant. Almquist, un tejano que vive y
trabaja desde hace cinco aos en Munich, ha exhibido sus obras recientes en
88
the Fabric Workshop and Museum in

Philadelphia.
especializada en serigrafa a gran escala en The Fabric Workshop and Museum

de Filadelfia.
Pamela Mattera is Chinatis annual

giving manager, a new fundraising
and development position. She arrived in Marfa from New York City,
where she managed the Lower East
Side Tenement Museums membership program for over four years.
Mattera is attracted to marginal and
unique museums where she finds
particular interest in how these institutions connect with culture at large.
Her masters thesis investigated the
importance of a museums societal
role, especially how historical issues
are linked to the present, which has
led to the development of programs
that create communities around muse-
Staff News
Noticias de nuestro personal
Stephanie
Hunnicutt es nuestra
Especialista en Servicios a Visitantes y, en calidad de tal, se encarga

de reservaciones y de la librera del
museo; adems, en colaboracin con
el personal de educacin, los guas y
los internos, desarrolla materiales que
tivos anuales, un puesto nuevo. Pamela

viene a Marfa de la ciudad de Nueva
York, donde se haba encargado de los
programas de membresa del Lower
East Side Tenement Museum durante
ms de cuatro aos. Se siente atrada
a los museos marginados y de carcter
nico, interesndose en forma especial
en las relaciones entre dichas instituciones y la cultura general. Su tesis de
Maestra investiga la importancia de
los museos dentro de la sociedad, sobre
todo la conexin entre temas histricos
y el tiempo presente, lo que ha conducido al desarrollo de programas que
gr ac e d avis
ra m on n u ez
pa m e l a m atte r a
s t e p h a nie h u n nicu tt
Stephanie Hunnicutt is Chinatis visitor services associate. She manages

tour reservations, the museum bookstore, and develops visitor related
materials working closely with edu-
Pamela Mattera es gerente de dona-
cation staff, docents, and interns to

facilitate collection tours. Previously,
Hunnicutt served as project director at
the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards
Project in Humboldt County, CA and
worked as the project administrative
specialist at CE T Environmental Services in Washington. A native Texan,
she holds her B FA from the University
of North Texas and recently lived in
Terlingua, TX.
Former Chinati intern Grace Davis
began as the education associate in
September. She oversees Chinatis
internship program, docent training,
and assists with education and outreach. Originally from Charleston,
SC, Davis is an artist working in fiber and printmaking. She received
her B FA from the Art Institute of Chicago and previously apprenticed in
large-scale repeat silk screening at
ums. Mattera holds her BA in History

from Boston College and her MA in
Museum Studies from the University
of Leicester. She is a national council
member on the American Association
of Museums Emerging Museum Professionals committee.
los visitantes utilizan en sus recorridos

por Chinati. Anteriormente, Hunnicutt
haba sido directora en AmeriCorps
Watershed
Stewards
Project
en
el
Condado de Humboldt (California) y

administradora en CET Environmental
Services en Washington. Originalmen-
crean comunidades a partir o alrededor

de los museos. Mattera obtuvo su Licenciatura en Historia de Boston College y
su Maestra en Museologa de la Universidad de Leicester. Es miembro a nivel
nacional de la Comisin de Museos
Emergentes, de la Asociacin Americana de Museos.
te de Texas, Stephanie obtuvo su Licen-
Ramon Nuez will retire this fall after serving as Chinatis foreman for
the past twenty-three years. Nuez
worked under Donald Judd and supervised a great deal of the construction at Chinati during its early years.
In his dedication to the work of maintaining the campus, Ramon demonstrated an inspiring sensitivity to the
nature of Chinati, its art and buildings, and the land. We are honored
to have worked with him and wish
Ramon all the best.
ciatura en Bellas Artes de la University

of North Texas y residi recientemente
en Terlingua.
Grace Davis, una ex interna de Chinati, ocup el cargo de Especialista en
Educacin en septiembre. Tiene ahora a
su cargo los programas de internados y
capacitacin de guas y proporciona su
ayuda en asuntos de educacin y extensin. Oriunda de Charleston, Carolina
del Sur, Davis es una artista que trabaja
en fibra y grabados. Se licenci en Bellas Artes en el Art Institute of Chicago,
habiendo sido anteriormente aprendiz
89
Ramon Nuez se jubilar este otoo

despus de haber trabajado durante
23 aos como Capataz de Obras de la
Fundacin Chinati. Nuez labor bajo
Donald Judd y supervis gran parte de
la construccin en Chinati durante su
primera poca, dedicndose de lleno al
cuidado de los predios. Ramon demostr una notable sensibilidad a la naturaleza de Chinati, su arte, sus edificios
y sus terrenos. Ha sido un honor colaborar con l, y le deseamos lo mejor.
Education and outreach at Chinati: Flora and Fauna, Fried

Educacin y Extensin en Chinati: Flora y fauna, Pollo frito, Papalotes
Workshops, classes, lectures, special

open viewings of the collection, and
other events allow area residents and
visitors alike a first-hand experience
of the artistic vision, culture, history,
and landscape that make the Chinati Foundation and Marfa a unique
place.
A summer art program was started
by the museum in the late 1980s to
provide activities for area students
during the summer months. For over
twenty years these summer classes
have been offered free of charge.
This year, over sixty students, ages
pre-school through 8th grade, participated in the program, with classes
designed to encourage students exploration of their relationship to landscape. Students roamed the Chinati
grounds with sketchbooks and vials
used to collect samples of the local
flora. A three-dimensional map of
Marfa was created and installed in

the Arena. Plays and stories were
written, a theatre stage built, and
costumes depicting animals, unicorns
and zombies materialized, culminating in a weekly performance for students family and friends.
Free classes for young people are
also offered throughout the year
during school breaks and holidays,
and area elementary and junior/
senior high school students visit the
museum as part of their school curriculum. Kindergarten students took
a cue from John Chamberlain on a
school field trip to his building downtown to learn about form, space, and
color. After exploring the exhibition,
students collectively used their bodies as if they were auto parts and
rearranged themselves into colorful
masses of arms, legs, sweaters, and
tennis shoes.
Mediante talleres, clases, conferencias,

exhibiciones abiertas al pblico y otros
eventos, los visitantes y residentes de
nuestra rea obtienen una experiencia
directa de la visin artstica, la cultura,
la historia y el paisaje que hacen de la
Fundacin Chinati y de Marfa un lugar
nico.
Se inici un programa de arte de verano a finales de los aos ochentas para
brindar actividades a los estudiantes de
la localidad. Durante ms de 20 aos,
estas clases se han ofrecido gratuitamente todos los veranos. Este ao, ms
de 60 jvenes, de nivel preescolar al octavo grado, participaron en el programa, en clases diseadas para animar a
90
los jvenes a explorar su relacin con

el paisaje. Los muchachos recorran los
predios de Chinati con blocs de dibujo
y frascos para recoger muestras de la
flora local. Se cre un mapa tridimensional de Marfa, el cual fue instalado
en la Arena. Se construy un escenario
teatral, se escribieron historias y piezas dramticas, y se confeccion un
vestuario que representaba animales,
unicornios y zombies, culminando cada
semana en puestas en escena a las que
asistan las familias y amigos de los
alumnos.
Se ofrecen clases gratuitas durante todo
el ao para gente joven, en das festivos
o cuando tienen vacaciones escolares,
y los alumnos de escuela intermedia y
preparatoria visitan el museo como
parte de su programa de estudios. Los
nios de kinder visitaron la exhibicin de obras de John Chamberlain en
su edificio en el centro de Marfa y, en
Chicken, Hand-made Kites, Grass Identification, and Zombies

hechos a mano, Identificacin de hierba, y Zombies
t h e c h i n at i f o u n dat i o n p r e s e n t s
Rackstraw Downes: I am a Painter

a f r e e l e c t u r e a n d c o m m u n i ty p ot-l u c k d i n n e r
s u n day, m a r c h 20, 2011
Dinner at 6:00 pm
Artists talk at 7:00 pm
Crowley Theatre
Marfa, Texas
The past year, people y oung and

oldinvested in a wide-range of activities that took place all over the museum grounds and around the town of
Marfa, often in collaboration with local artists and other creative folks. A
local designer taught visitors to make
kites from Tyvek and balsa wood, flying them later in the open field next to
Judds concrete sculpture. Several locations on the museum grounds were
used for a sound and sight workshop,
where participants carefully collected
recordings, drawings and other field
notes and data, working with sound
and recording artists. We learned
printmaking and paper making, ate
hotdogs, studied bugs and grasses
with local 4H students and master
naturalists, and watched films in the
ArtLab.
Artist Rackstraw Downes presented a
slide lecture on his work with the com-
Bring a covered dish

or drink.
munity joining togetherin a concluding potluck dinner. Folks entered the

gates of the fort at the crack of dawn
to watch the sunrise peak over the
mountains and illuminate Judds 100
works in mill aluminum with a fiery
light. Residents and friends gathered
for Community Day, an annual event
held on the museum grounds. Fried
chicken, corn bread, and ice cream
were served; a collaborative, handmade paper sculpture erected and
hung from the rafters of the Arena;
and visitors enjoyed open viewing
of the collection and gallery talks by
Chinati staff. The day culminated in a
lecture on Fort D.A. Russell by local
historian Lonn Taylor, held in one of
the former army mess halls that still
houses wall paintings created by fort
soldiers many years ago.
imitacin de stas, que estn hechas de

partes de automviles, convirtieron sus
propios cuerpos en artefactos similares,
apretujndose en masas coloridas de
brazos, piernas, suteres y tenis.
Durante este ao pasado, jvenes y
adultos participaron en una amplia
gama de actividades que tuvieron lugar
en los predios de Chinati y en todo Marfa, colaborando con frecuencia con artistas locales y otra gente creativa. Un
diseador de la localidad ense a los
visitantes a hacer papalotes con Tyvek
y madera de balsa, que luego volaban
en el campo abierto junto a las esculturas en concreto de Judd. Se aprovecharon varios sitios en los predios del
museo para realizar un taller de vista
y sonido, en el cual los participantes
reunan grabaciones, dibujos, apuntes
y otros datos, en colaboracin con artistas de sonido y grabacin . Aprendimos
a hacer grabados y papel, comimos hot
91
dogs, estudiamos insectos y hierbas con

naturalistas de la localidad, y vimos pelculas en el Artlab.
El artista Rackstraw Downes dio una
charla con diapositivas sobre el tema de
su trabajo en la comunidad, seguida de
una cena. La gente entr a Chinati antes
del amanecer para ver salir el sol sobre
las montaas, iluminando las 100 obras
en aluminio de Donald Judd con su luz
de fuego. Todos se juntaron para celebrar el Da de la Comunidad, comiendo
pollo frito, escuchando una conferencia
sobre la historia del Fuerte D.A. Russell,
apreciando proyectos de arte, viendo
las exhibiciones y escuchando charlas
sobre las galeras, dadas por el personal de Chinati. El da culmin en una
conferencia sobre el tema del Fuerte
D.A. Russell, pronunciada por el historiador local Lonn Taylor.
Internship Program
Programa de internados
Since 1990, the Chinati Foundations

internship program has provided
hands-on museum experience to
more than 240 students, recent graduates and young professionals from
a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. During extended stays at Chinati, interns gain exposure to various
aspects of the museums daily operations, working closely with staff,
resident artists, visiting scholars, architects, and museum professionals.
Interns play an essential role in the
museums daily operations and gain
valuable experience for future courses of study and careers as museum
and arts administration and artists.
Over the last 20 years, participants
in the program have included interns
from all parts of the United States, as
well as Austria, Belgium, England,
Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Brazil, Scotland, Sweden, and
Australia.
As compensation, the museum offers
interns a modest stipend of $100 per
week and a furnished apartment on
the Chinati grounds. Although Chinatis internships are geared toward
students pursuing degrees in art,
architecture, art history, conservation, or museum studies, the museum
welcomes applicants of all ages and
backgrounds.
Chinati offers internships in the following areas: general museum,
conservation and development. For
more information about the program
visit www.chinati.org.
Y o seff B en - Y ehuda
I rene B erk o witz
M att J ac o bs
M iriam J o hanness o n
M egan R andall
Y an o R ivera
Desde 1990, el programa de internados

de la Fundacin Chinati ha brindado,
a ms de 240 estudiantes, egresados
recientes y profesionales jvenes con
diversas experiencias e intereses, la
oportunidad de relacionarse directamente con el museo. Los participantes
permanecen aqu por un periodo extendido, durante el cual conocen de cerca
las operaciones de Chinati y trabajan
en estrecha colaboracin con nuestro
personal, artistas en residencia, investigadores visitantes, arquitectos y
muselogos profesionales. Los internos
juegan un papel decisivo en el funcionamiento diario del museo y obtienen
valiosa experiencia para sus carreras
acadmicas y su vida profesional futura
en el campo de la museologa y la administracin de artes.
Durante los ltimos veinte aos hemos
contado con la participacin de internos
de todas partes de los Estados Unidos y
de Austria, Blgica, Inglaterra, Alemania, Holanda, Israel, Italia, Japn, Mxico, Nueva Zelandia, Portugal, Brasil,
Escocia, Suecia y Australia.
Los internos reciben un estipendio de
$100 semanales y un apartamento
amueblado en los predios del museo.
Aunque los internados estn destinados principalmente a estudiantes de las
20102011
Interns
carreras de arte, arquitectura, historia

del arte, conservacin y museologa,
invitamos a todo tipo de solicitantes, de
diversas edades y especializaciones.
Internos
Chinati ofrece actualmente un internado

general en museologa, un internado en
conservacin y un internado enfocado
al desarrollo. Para mayores informes,
favor de visitar www.chinati.org.
92
D ani C ardia
M o lly E verett
A llys o n F eeny
S ara H ammar
T ahinee m . felix M arin
R aven M unsell
R achel N eel
P o lyxeni P apad o p o ul o u
E lisa S mil o vitz
Olivia S mith
G ladysa c . V ega - g o nzlez
M adeleine W ilhite
Yoseff Ben-Yehuda
Allyson Feeny
Sarah McMenamin
Yano Rivera
New York, NY
San Francisco, CA
(not pictured) San Francisco, CA
San Francisco, CA & San Juan, Puerto Rico
Irene Berkowitz
Sara Hammar
Raven Munsell
Elisa Smilovitz
Philadelphia, PA
Gothenburg, Sweden
Portland, OR
Leonia, NJ
Madeleine Compagnon
Matt Jacobs
Rachel Neel
Olivia Smith
(not pictured) New York, NY
Kansas City, Missouri
Austin, TX
Dallas, TX
Dani Cardia
Miriam Johannesson
Polyxeni Papadopoulou
Gladysa C. Vega-Gonzlez
New York, NY
Stockholm, Sweden
Drama, Greece
Philadelphia, PA
Molly Everett
Tahinee M. Felix Marin
Megan Randall
Madeleine Wilhite
Berkley, CA
Austin, TX
New York, NY
San Francisco, CA
93
Friends of Chinati
Funding
Amigos de Chinati
Financiamiento
With Chinati, Donald Judd created one of the worlds finest installations
of contemporary art. The Friends of Chinati play a critical role and are
committed to supporting the mission of the museum through their generous annual support. The museum is deeply grateful to the Friends of
Chinati.
Chinati is very grateful for all of the generous annual support provided
by donors who make our work possible. They have our continued and
immense thanks.
Donald Judd cre con Chinati una de las mejores instalaciones de arte contemporneo en
Chinati agradece en forma especial el generoso apoyo anual de nuestros donantes, que
todo el mundo. Los Amigos de Chinati juegan un papel crtico con su compromiso al apoyar
hace posible nuestra labor. Les agradecemos infinitamente su colaboracin.
la misin del museo a travs de sus generosos donativos anuales. El museo agradece profundamente a los Amigos de Chinati.
Daphne Beal and Sean Wilsey
F o undati o ns
Maharam
Arlene J. and John Dayton
The Booth Heritage Foundation, Inc.
The Pace Gallery
The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Zwimpfer Partner
Chadwick/Lohrer Foundation
Philipp Engelhorn
The Cowles Charitable Trust

Fifth Floor Foundation
Rolf and Federica Fehlbaum
Frank Strick Foundation
individuals
Phyllis and George Finley
George and Mary Josephine Hamman
Anne Adams
Fanchon and Howard Hallam
The Elke Hoppe Youth Advancement Trust
William C. & Elita T. Agee
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Brooke Alexander
Christian K. Keesee
Judd Foundation
Carolyn Alexander & Ted Bonin
Mr. and Mrs. I.H. Kempner III
Ben E. Keith Foundation
Katherine & Dean Alexander
Carl B. & Florence E. King Foundation
Mitchell Anderson
Kirkpatrick Family Fund
Anonymous
The Kraus Family Foundation
Anonymous
Lannan Foundation
Anonymous
The Lebowitz Family Foundation
Robert & Valerie Arber
L L LW Foundation
Richard Armstrong
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.
Reuben & Joan Baron
Phil and Monica Rosenthal
The Donald R. Mullen Family Foundation
Frank N. Bash
National Endowment for the Arts
Douglas Baxter
The Wilhelm Hoppe Family Trust
Nightingale Code Foundation
Daphne Beal & Sean Wilsey
Permian Basin Area Foundation
Toni & Jeff Beauchamp
William C. Perry and Paul A. Nelson Charitable
Charlotte Bellan
Foundation
Don Mullen
Brenda Potter
Evelyn P. and Edward W. Rose III
Elvia Agan
Fund of the Community Foundation of North
William Bernhard
Texas
Ingrid & Theodor Boeddeker
The Shifting Foundation
Kristin Bonkemeyer & Douglas Humble
The Ruth Stanton Foundation
Mary Bonkemeyer
Texas Commission on the Arts
Frances Bowes
The Trull Foundation
John W. Bowsher
Union Pacific Foundation
Brian Boylan
The Susan Vaughan Foundation, Inc.
Udo Brandhorst
The Walsh Fund of the Ayco Charitable
Linda Brown
Foundation
Robert Brownlee
Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy
Sue & Allan K. Butcher
Barbara Buzzell
94
businesses
David Cabrera & Alexander Gray
Atlantic Plywood Corp.
Chris Carson
Austin Street Caf
Clare Casademont & Michael Metz
AXA
Jennifer Chaiken & Sam Hamilton
Big Bend Banks. Marfa National Bank
Annette L. Clifton
Cochineal
Andrew B. Cogan & Lori Finkel
ducduc llc
Robert Colaciello
Elliott + Associates Architects
Ric Collier
Food Shark
Frances Colpitt & Don Walton
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Karen Comegys-Wortz
Green Works, P.L.L.C.
Paula Cooper
Ralph Copeland
Richard Gluckman & Tiffany Bell
Colleen Keegan
Clyde & Fran McKinney
Evelyn P. & Edward W. Rose III
Estella Cordero
Robert Gober & Donald Moffett
Christian K. Keesee
Henry S. McNeil, Jr.
Steve Rose
Phil Cordero
Laurel Gonsalves
James Kelly
Marsha & Jim Meehan
Glen A. Rosenbaum
Adam W. Cox
David & Maggi Gordon
Mr. & Mrs. I.H. Kempner III
Anthony Meier
Jessica Rothacker
Susan & Sanford Criner
Gayle Gordon
Colin Kennedy
A.P. & Linda Meier
Susan & Trammel Rushing
Tim Crowley
Anthony & Linda Grant
Martha & Raoul Kennedy
Margie Mendoza
Carl E. Ryan & Suzi Davidoff
Don & Valerie Culbertson
Richard & Mary L. Gray
Christina Kim
Jonathan Mergele
David Salkin
Brenda & Sorrel Danilowitz
Paul Graybeal
Ben & Margaret Kitchen
Jane Mertz
Horst Schmitter
Adam Davies
Michael Green
Allan & Sue Klumpp
Lorenz M. & Rengin Holt Moser
Annabelle Selldorf
Arlene J. & John Dayton
Joanne Greenbaum
Walther Koenig
David Moulton
Ivan Serdar
John P. de Neufville
Robert & Rosario Halpern
Charles Mary Kubricht & Ron
Terry Mowers & Suzanne Tick
Sir Nicholas Serota
Martha & Rupert T. Deese
Bill Hamilton
Nina Murayama
Sara Shackleton & Michael
Janie & Dick DeGuerin
Jeff Hamrick
Liz Lambert & Robert Johns
Helene Nagy
Michael & Dudley Del Balso
Tim & Nancy Hanley
Jay Land & Virginia Clark
Julie P. Nelson
Marie Shannon
Claire Dewar
Betty & Ed Harris
Robert Nicolais
Katherine Shaughnessy & Tom
Larry A. & Laura R. Doll
Lauren Harrison
Inge-Lise & John R. Lane
Nancy M. OBoyle
Herminia Dominguez
Sarah Harte & John Gutzler
Kelly Lasser
Hunter Oatman-Stanford
Susan Shehan
Robert & Mimi Dopson
Roxana & Jim Hayne
Stephen Lawson
Steven H. & Nancy K. Oliver
Kate Shepherd & Miles McManus
Sommers
Fitzgerald
McKeogh
Michael
Richard Shiff
Lea Simonds
Marjo and Larry Skiles
David K. Smith
Marlene Spector
Julie Speed & Francis Christina
Jan Staller
Frederick & AnnPage Stecker
Karen D. Stein
Chuck Stephenson
Michael Ward Stout
Ca rl A nd r e. Ch in at i T h irt e e ne r , M a rfa , T x , 2 010 . C h inat i F o u nd at io n .
A.D. & Robin Stuart

Robin & Sandy Stuart
Jeffrey & Tricia Sturges
Sumiko Tanabe
John & Erin Tassoulas
Lonn & Dedie Taylor
David Teiger
Robert & Annabelle Tiemann
Dr. J. Tillapaugh
Emily Leland Todd
Kimberly Bush Tomio
Tina & John Evers Tripp
Billie Tsien & Tod Williams
Edward R. Tufte
Gen Umezu
Hester van Royen
Dianne Vanderlip
John W. Vinson & Martha C. Vogel
Laurie Vogel
Fairfax Dorn
Emerson Head
Virginia Lebermann
Sachiko Osaki
Julie Wade & Tom Phillips
R.H. Rackstraw Downes
Kristen Hileman
John Tevis &David Leclerc
Duncan & Elizabeth Osborne
Reggie Waldren
Meredith Dreiss
Marguerite Steed Hoffman
Toby Devan Lewis
Jon Otis & Diane Barnes
Catherine Walsh
Suzanne & Tom Dungan
Roni Horn
Rosina Lee Yue & Bert Lies
Aaron Parazette & Sharon
Mr. Brit Webb
David Egeland & Andrew Friedman
Harry & Shelley Hudson
Susan Lindberg
Gregor Eichele & Christina Thaller
Fredericka Hunter & Ian Glennie
Alexander Lloyd
John & Catherine Pawson
Rob Weiner
Rand & Jeanette Elliott
Ruth S. Ibold Trust
James & Stephanie Loeffler
Carol & Pete Peterson
Mark T. Wellen
Francesca Esmay
Kristi Isacksen
Cecilia Longoria
Carolyn Pfeiffer Bradshaw
Georgia E. Welles
Steven Evans
Barbara Jakobson
Elizabeth Lord
Susan Philips & Marja Spearman
Joanna & Lawrence Weschler
Exhibitions 2d
Bob & Jean James
Katherine and John Losse
Jonathan (Jack) Pierson
John Wesley
David Fannin
James B. & Perry Jamieson
Marley Lott
Brenda Potter
Elizabeth Williams
Vernon & Amy Faulconer
Dolores D. Johnson
Kay & Travis Lunceford
Matt Powell
Gregg & Lily Wilson
Anthony L. Feher
Michael & Suzanne Johnson
Victor Lundy
Ken & Happy Price
Isabel B. & Wallace S. Wilson
Phyllis & George Finley
O. B. & Kathleen Johnson
Alby Maccarone
Emily Rauh Pulitzer
Emi Winter & Steffen Boddeker
Kira & Neil Flanzraich
Sharon Johnston & Mark Wai Tak
Betty MacGuire
Tom Rapp & Toshifumi Sakihara
Andrew Witkin
Deborah A. Madison
Yasmil Raymond
Edward Woodill
Kevin Flynn & Kathy McDaniel
Lee
Engelstein
Lawrence and Alice Weiner
Richard Ford
William B. Jordan
David Madson
Mary Virginia Reeder
Christopher Wool
John F. Fort III
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov
Gerda Maise & Daniel Gttin
Mark Reynolds
Erin Wright & Joe Sola
Helen Winkler Fosdick
Georgia Lee Kahl
Joni Marginot & Scott May
Jody Rhone & Tom Pritchard
David P. & Sheri L. Wright
Michael M. & Cynthia C. Fowler
Oliver Kamm
Anne Dette & Fred Martens
James R. Rhotenberry, Jr.
Charles Wylie
Maxine & Stuart Frankel
Mike & Fawzia Kane
Laurence V. Mathews & Brian
Margarethe & Reinhard Richter
Kulapat Yantrasast
Ann Garvin & Bruce Matney
Jun & Ree Kaneko
Edwin Rifkin
Alma Zevi
Debbie & Gary Gassel
Saarin Casper Keck & Ronnie
Leslie Gill
ODonnell
Saliman
Cara M. McCulloch
Gina Rivera
Sarah McEneaney
Michael Roch & Sterry Butcher
95
Membership
Toby Devan Lewis
Carolyn M. Appleton
Rick Morrow & Mark Jones
James Ard
Tammy McNary & Steven Hagler
Damon Arhos and Mark Peppler
Nancy A. Nasher & David
Joe R. Arredondo
J.Haemisegger
Membresa
The Chinati Foundation is very grateful for the support of its members,
who total more than 800 local, national, and international donors that
help the museum through their annual membership contributions. Basic
membership for individuals and families start at $100 ($50 for students
and senior citizens). Member benefits include free museum admission
throughout the year; discounts on selected publications, posters, and Chinati editions; the annual museum newsletter; advance notice on Chinati
programs; and free or reduced admission to special events and symposia. As an extra incentive for membership giving at higher levels, each
year an artist creates a limited edition print or multiple exclusively for
Chinati members who contribute $1000 or more (for additional information see pages 86 and 87).
Charles & Christine Aubrey
Marleen & Marc Olivi
Lisa & Richard Baker
Sachiko Osaki
Tom Barnes & Uta Maria Krapf
John Robins
Reuben & Joan Baron
Carl E. Ryan & Suzi Davidoff
Paul & Ilene Barr
Gen Umezu
Frank N. Bash
Clint Wells
Frank & Freda Bates

Susan Sayre Batton
M embers $ 2 5 0 +
Bodil J. & Kenny Beanland
Claire & Douglas Ankenman
Geoffrey C. Beaumont
Ashley Barrett & Dan Malone
Michael Bejarano
Ralph & Gretchen Berggren
Miles & Leah Kreger Bellamy
Kristin Bonkemeyer & Douglas
Kate & Andrew Bellin
Humble
Dr. Charles M. & Anne Ponder
Boyd
Kari Bentley
Sue & Joe Berland
William G. Butler
Walter & Rosalind Bernheimer
Michael Caddell & Cynthia
Margaret C. Bills
Chapman
Peter C. Caldwell & Lora J.
Wildenthal
La Fundacin Chinati agradece de corazn el apoyo de sus miembros, en total ms de 800
Marc Benda
Michael Bisbee & Sigrid McCabe

Bill & SueSue Bounds
Kathleen Boyd
a nivel local, nacional e internacional, los cuales ayudan al museo mediante sus donativos
Jennifer Chaiken & Sam Hamilton
Kathy & Brad Bracewell
anuales de membresa. La membresa bsica para individuos y familias comienza en $100
Elizabeth Cherry & Olivier Mosset
($50 para estudiantes y personas mayores). Los beneficios de afiliarse incluyen entrada
J. Patrick & Lindsey Collins
Udo Brandhorst
Frances Colpitt & Don Walton
Bud Brannigan
Susan Combs & Joe Duran
Michelle K. Brock
Brenda & Sorrel Danilowitz
Cynthia Brown
Paul & Sandra Dennehy
Thomas & Nicole Brown
Jan & Kaayk Dibbets
Franz Bucher
Vincent Doogan
Charles Butt
Evan Hughes Studio
Robert & Laura Cadwallader
Steven Evans
Elizabeth Caldwell
gratuita al museo durante todo el ao; descuentos en ciertas publicaciones, posters y Ediciones Chinati; el boletn anual del museo; aviso anticipado sobre programas ofrecidos por
Chinati; y entrada gratuita o descontada a eventos especiales y simposios. Como incentivo
adicional para afiliarse a nivel superior, cada ao un artista crea una edicin mltiple exclusivamente para los miembros de Chinati que aportan $1,000 a ms a la Fundacin (para
el mltiplo de este ao, vea las pginas 86 y 87).
Frederick Fisher
Stephen F. & Kathleen Calhoun
Ann Garvin & Bruce Matney
Kenneth Capps
Richard Gluckman & Tiffany Bell
Art & Alex Carpenter
Gerry & Rebecca Grace
Chris Carson
Harvey & Kathleen Guion
Lillian Cartwright
Fredericka Hunter & Ian Glennie
Kristen Casey
Vilis Inde & Tom Jacobs
J. Scott Chase
George B. Kelly
Jiye Choi
M embers $ 2 5 0 0 +
Michael Govan & Katherine Ross
Lea Simonds
Arthur Leibundgut
Antonio Citterio
Fairfax Dorn
Stanley & Marcia Gumberg
ke & Caisa Skeppner
Susan Lindberg
John & Stephanie Clark
Molly Kemp
Rob Granado
William F. Stern
Victor Lundy
Margaret Liu Clinton
Terry Mowers & Suzanne Tick
Daniel Hall & Robanna Ogden
Mike S. Stude
Joe Milton
Rachel Cobb & Morgan Entrekin
Lisa and John Pritzker
Evan & Anne Hall
Thomas & Joanie Swift
John M. Parker
Professor Claudio Cobelli
Sara Shackleton & Michael
Bill Hamilton
Annemarie & Gianfranco Verna
Jonathan Pierson
Beth Cochran
Sarah Harte & John Gutzler
Laurie Vogel
Tom Rapp & Toshifumi Sakihara
Robert Colaciello
Josef Helfenstein & Dorothee Sauter
John Wesley
John P. Shaw
Don & Valerie Culbertson
Helmut & Deborah Jahn
David P. & Sheri L. Wright
Beau Staley
Tom Cosgrove
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov
George & Lois Stark
Jenny & Allen Craig
M embers $ 1 0 0 0 +
Younghee Kim-Wait
Barbara Swift
Margaret Anne Cullum
Robert & Valerie Arber
Anstiss & Ronald Krueck
M embers $ 5 0 0 +
Lonn & Dedie Taylor
Jay Dandy
Joy Beckman
Bert Lies & Rosina Lee Yue
Dr. Thomas & Christina Bechtler
John F. Thrash
Rosemary Davis
Raymond & Susan Brochstein
Amanda Love
Molly E. Cumming
Dr. J. Tillapaugh
Sara Jane DeHoff
Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond
Betty MacGuire
Lou & Christy Cushman
Dianne Vapnek
Dirk Denison
Catherine MacMahon
Claire Dishman
Gerhard & Claudia von Velsen
Paul T. Dickel & Don Farris
Karin & Elliot Cattarulla
Paul & Renee Mansheim
Fred & Char Durham
H. Keith Wagner
Jennifer Lynn DiFabbio
Jim & Carolyn Clark
Tom, Andrea & Megan Meece
Kira & Neil Flanzraich
Henry & Maria Wegmann
Lee Donaldson
Dennis Dickinson, Exhibitions 2d
Marlene N. Meyerson
Helen Winkler Fosdick
Georgia E. Welles
Tom & Joell Doneker
Larry A. & Laura R. Doll
Martin & Kitty Mitchell
Arne & Milly Glimcher
Eugenia & Francis H. Wright
Jodi & Jeffrey DuFresne
R.H. Rackstraw Downes
Kate & Stuart Nielsen
Gayle Gordon
Suzanne & Tom Dungan
Jon Otis & Diane Barnes
Matthew Goudeau
Francesca Esmay
Matt Powell
Gerry & Rebecca Grace
M embers $ 1 0 0 +
David Egeland & Andrew Friedman
Joni & Tim Powers
Frances Gray
Anne Adams
Anthony L. Feher
Howard E. & Cindy Rachofsky
Steven Holl
Peter Affentranger
Samir Razuk Filho
Glen A. Rosenbaum
Barbara Jakobson
William C. & Elita T. Agee
Harold Eisenman
Kevin Flynn & Kathy McDaniel
Alisa Roth
Vance Knowles
Katherine & Dean Alexander
Dr. Thomas Eizenhofer
Brenda & Thomas Freiberg
Leslie B. Rubler Warner
David Leclerc & John Tevis
Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton
Esta & Robert Epstein
McKeogh
Edward R. Tufte
Learsy
John Dugdale & Megan Capshaw
96
Dea Ecker, Robert Piotrowski &

LilianMay
Kate Robinson Edwards & Lee
Edwards
Molissa Fenley
Jennifer Luce
Mark Schlesinger & Elise Urrutia
Larry Brownstein
Tatiana Thorpe
Richard Fletcher
Nadja & Hans Peter Luethi-Iseli
Marie Shannon
Robert Buggert
Lucy Todd
Kenneth Flowers
Char & John Lundeen
Douglas R. Sharps & Susan M.
Paula & Frank Kell Cahoon
Marlys Tokerud
Victoria Ford
Thomas Lussi
Kathy Carr
John Turner
Nick Fowler
Leslie MacLean
Don & Britt Chadwick
Dianne Vanderlip
Bill and Diane Arnold Frazier
Tony Maddalena
Leo Christie
Mary Vernon
Gary & Clare Freeman
David Madson
Molly Shea
Susan Clements
John Vosmek
B. Harah Frost
Julia Main & Robert Roper
Arlene Shechet
Gretchen Lee Coles
John F. Wells
Yoko Fukuda
Sherry & Joel Mallin
Kate Sheerin
Paul Connah
Kenneth White
Meredith Gaber
Patricia Mares
Adam Sheffer
Jason Conrad
Kathy Wilson
Mona Blocker Garcia & Rodolfo
Lawrence Markey
Susan Shoemaker & Richard Tobias
Francine Cooper
James Wittenberg
Jon & Betsy Martens
Stephanie & Bill Sick
Mary Crowley
Kulapat Yantrasast
Gianni Garzoli
Rachel Mauldin
Hak Sik Son
Pat & Dene Denechaud
James & Kathy Gentry
Michael McClain
Andrew Silewicz
Leah Dunaway
Richard George & Melissa McCurly
Jacqueline & J. Brant McGregor,
Marcel Sitcoske & Michael Oddo
Justin Enger
Morris Smart
Gail English
Rina Faletti & David Leh Sheng
Garcia
Carolyn Glasoe & Chris Bailey
M.D.s
Griffin
Katherine Shaughnessy & Tom
Michael
Stuart and Fern Gleichenhaus
Donald McNeil & Emily Galusha
Joanne Smith & Dwain Erwin
Stephen Redfield and Robert
Marianne Meyer
G. Phillip Smith
Bob Miles
Richard S. Smith
Paul Fauerso
Michael Green
Alicia & Bill Miller
Stijn Spaapen
Andrew Finegold
Phoebe Greenwood
Gary Miller
H. Paul St. Martin
Professor Dr. Jan A. Fischer
Andre Gregory & Cindy Kleine
Reverend William B. Miller
Mark Stankevich
Lisa & Jerry Friedman
Jonathan & Nonya Grenader
Megan Mills & Priscilla Warren
Christian Strenger
James Gaskill
Cathy Gretencord
Kelly Mitchell & Sean Garmin
Tom Strickler
Michael & Sirje Gold
Susan and Curtis Fuelberg Griffith
Helen Molesworth
Hannah Frost & Stuart Sussman
Diane Grob
Jenny & Vaughn Grisham
David Morice
Marc Swanson
Barbel Helmert
Mark Gunderson
Mr. & Mrs. William B. Moser
Mariana Tassinari
Stacey Herbert
Elisabet Gunnarsdottir
Thomas Mueller & Brigitte Stahl
Chris Taylor
Howard Hilliard
Daniel Habegger & Deborah S.
John Carl & Heidi Britt Mullican
Chris Taylor
Donald Hurst
Donald R. Mullins, Jr. & Cameron
Bette P. & Ralph Thomas
Nicole Ittner
John Charles Thomas
Jerry Johnson
Gonzalez
Zahar
Kathryn & David Halbower
Larson
Huang
Susan J. Halbower
Patrick Mundt
Robert & Annabelle Tiemann
Joan Kelleher
Christopher & Sherrie Hall
Donivee Nash
E. Marc Treib
Jane Kelly
Janet L. Hamilton
Brad Nelsen
Tina & John Evers Tripp
John M.C. King
Jeff Hamrick
Robert Nicolais
Billie Tsien & Tod Williams
Janet & Jonathan Kutner
Wil & Cecelia Harris
Jacqueline Northcut
Max Underwood
Ryan James Laul
Darwin Harrison
Ellen Osmanski
Reiko Ura
Jane & Rick Lewis
Nicole & Michael Hartnett
Katherine Owens
Barry Vacker
Ike & Valda Livingston
Jeannine & Jim Hascall
Mina Oya
Hester van Royen
Terry Mahaffey
Kathleen Hedrick
Marsha Pachter
Karien Vandekerkhove
Marjorie & Sam McClanahan
Birgitta Heid & Robert Mantel
John E. Parkerson
Alan & Laura Veigel
Robin Merlo
Dorene & Frank Herzog
Dr. Werner Peters
John W. Vinson & Martha C. Vogel
Brett Messenger
Joanna Hess
Sean Pluguez
Nicola von Velsen
John Miller & Elisa Evett
Sarah Hetherington
Patricia Quin & Thomas Schmidt
Christopher Wallis & J. Michael
Michael & Lea Morgan
Kristen Hileman
Michael Rabkin and Chip Tom
Jane Hilfer
Andy & Rosemarie Raeber
Matthew & Courtney Weir
Mary Ellen & Jack Morton
Barbara Hill
Brian Ramaekers & Ronnie Gensler
Mark Wellen
John Mulvany
Christopher C. Hill & Rudy
Alison Ramano
Janis & William Wetsman
Rita Norton
Frances Ramirez
Barry Whistler and Allison Smith
Hunter Oatman-Stanford
Rhona L. Hoffman
Red House Design
Jeff White
Patrick Orosco
James & D. Joy Howell
Erwin Redl
Summer Whitley
Charles D. & Elysee Peavy
William & Jean Hubbard
David Reed & Lillian Ball
Cindy Widner & Ed Baker
Barbara Perez
Cathy Kincaid Hudson
James R. Rhotenberry, Jr.
Karl Wiebke
Alexandra Peyton-Lievine
Denzil Hurley
Joanna Ring
Madeleine Wilhite
Thomas Poth
Bobby & Nancy Inman
Marjana and Hal Roach
Emi Winter & Steffen Boddeker
Mary Anna Prentice
Kristi Isacksen
Grant & Sheri Roane
Bill and Alice Wright
Mary Virginia Reeder
Eric & Liane Aiko Janovsky
Minnette Robinson
Malcolm & Marj Wright
Karen Retskin
Barbara Joslin
Michael Roch & Sterry Butcher
Dr. Rachel Goodman Yates
Steve Rose
Mike & Fawzia Kane
Seth Rodewald-Bates
Maiya Keck
Sarah Roe
Colleen Keegan
Margarete Roeder
M embers $ 5 0 +
Robert Schmitt
Michele, Mischa,Vincent & Rubens
Candid Rogers
Laura & Jean Pierre Albertinetti
Beverly Serrell
Andrea Rosen
James Allison
Johan Severtson
Jeffrey & Florence Laird
Autry Ross
Geraldine Aramanda
Mary Shaffer
Kelly Lasser
Judith N. Ross
Nicholas Bacuez
Elyssa Shalla
Tim & Amy Leach
James & Frances K. Sage
Karl H. & Gudrun H. Becker
Hiram & Liz Sibley
Lorna Leedy & Peter Maggio
Ro & Rick Sanders
Colin Benjamin
Kim Smith
Emily Liebert
Andreas Schmidt
Ingrid & Theodor Boeddeker
Marlene Spector
James & Stephanie Loeffler
Wagner & Annalee Schorr
Charles Boone & Josefa Vaughan
Frederick & AnnPage Stecker
Richard Long
Rita Schreiber
Margarita Brandes
Richard J. Stepcick
Elizabeth Lord
Bob Schwab & Leslie Wilkes
Anne Brown
Gail & Harold Straus
Linda Lorenzetti
Dieter Schwarz
Linda Brown
Choperena
Kuball
James Morris & Cindy Zemis-Morris
Smith
Hilda & Steve Rosenfeld

Carolyn & Vern Rosson
Barbara G. Teeter
97
Colophon
Board of Directors
Staff
Colofn
Consejo Directivo
Personal
Rob Weiner,
Marfa / New York
Brooke Alexander
Gracie Conners
Bettina Landgrebe
New York City
Bookkeeper/Tenedora de Libros
Conservator/Conservadora
Editor
Douglas Baxter
Marella Consolini
Pamela Mattera
Rutger Fuchs, Amsterdam
New York City
Chief Operating Officer/
Annual Giving Manager/
Graphic Design / Diseo Grfico
Andrew Cogan
Directora Ejecutiva
Gerente de Donativos Anuales
Yoseff Ben-Yehuda,
Marfa / New York
New York City
Jolanda Cruz
Ann Marie Nafziger
Arlene Dayton
Caretaker/Ujier
Director of Education and Outreach/
Assistant Editor / Editor Asistente
Dallas
Grace Davis
Directora de Educacin y Extensin
Richard Ford,
Guadalupe Gmez,
El Paso
Vernon Faulconer
Education Associate/Especialista
Ramon Nuez
Tyler
en Educacin
Foreman/Capataz
Mack Fowler
Alberto Garcia
Michael Salazar
Spanish Translations /
Houston
Caretaker/Ujier
Groundskeeper/Jardinero
Traducciones al espaol
William B. Jordan
Sandra Hinojos
Dan Shiman
David Tompkins, Marfa
Dallas
Office Manager/Gerente de Oficina
Technology and Data Specialist/ Espe-
Copy Editor / Corrector
Raoul D. Kennedy
Stephanie Hunnicutt
cialista en Tecnologa y Datos
San Francisco
Visitor Services Associate/Especialista
Kelly Sudderth
Virginia Lebermann
en Servicios a Visitantes
Chief Financial Officer/Contralora
Marfa
Thomas Kellein
Rob Weiner
Michael Maharam
Director
Curator at Large/Curador
Credits
New York City
Anthony Meier
Crditos
San Francisco
front cover, 50, 53, 5455, 56 Richard Deacon; inside cover, 95 Aurora Tang; 23, 4, 5,
67, 89, 84, 85, 89, 100 Yoseff Ben-Yehuda;
10, 11, 22, 23, 26, 27, 3031, 33, 34, 3637,
Annabelle Selldorf
London
Richard Shiff
Andre; 33 courtesy Eva Meyer-Hermann; 46
Austin
(left), 48 (top), 49 Krefelder Kunstmuseen /
Catherine Walsh
13, 14, 15, 17 2011 Estate of Alfred Stieglitz / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York,
courtesy Phillips Gallery, Washington, D.C.;
29 The Village Voice, courtesy Paula Coo-
H o n o rary D irect o rs
Rudi Fuchs
Library; 68, 69, 70 courtesy The Judd Foun-
Amsterdam
dation; 72, 73 courtesy Josiah McElheny; 86
Franz Meyer
ard; 88 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS),

New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
Unless otherwise noted, all images are from the
Ursula Price
Julie Speed and Francis
Tina Hejtmanek and
Tom Rapp and Toshifumi
Pat Keesey
Madeleine Compagnon
Katherine Kellein
Larry Conners
Brenda, Jasper, Trevor,

and Tanner Klein
Sakihara
Susan Simmons Reinhardt
Craig Rember, Judd Foundation
Anne Riives
Guy Cross
K R T S Marfa Public Radio
Gina Rivera
Rob Crowley
Tigie Lancaster
James Rodewald
Tim Crowley
Nicole Lattuca
Rico Roman, Judd Foundation
Crowley Foundation
Zoe Leonard
Randy Sanchez,
Crowley Theater
Andrew Lins, Philadelphia

Museum of Art
Judd Foundation
Alexandra Schmidt
Alfred Lippincott, Wassaic, NY

Chuck Loban
Annalee Newman
Rupert Deese
Katherine Losse
Marjo Skiles
Dennis Dickinson,
Lia Lowenthal, Paula Cooper
Gina Leiss and Gory Smelley
(19092000)
Exhibitions 2d
Brydon Smith
Marianne Stockebrand
JD DiFabbio
Larry and Laura Doll
Director Emerita, Marfa
This publication has been

generously supported by
Gallery
Rosa Lowinger, Lauren Hall,

Rosa Lowinger and Associates
Stacy Schultz, University of

Texas, El Paso
Shelley M. Smith, The Menil

Collection
Charles Mary Kubricht and
Herminia Dominguez
Ruben Madrid
Meredith Dreiss
Dave Mainz
Squeeze Marfa
Steve Elfring
Maiyas Restaurant
Peter Stanley
Francesca Esmay
Patty Manning
Stay Marfa: Vilis Inde and
Lisa Cuellar Felix
Marfa High School National
Food Company, Dallas
D aphne B eal & S ean W ilsey ,
Honor Society
Ron Sommers
Tom Jacobs
Chuck Stephenson
Food Shark
Marfa Recording Company
Emily Steriti
FRAMA
Scott May and Joni Marginot
Marianne Stockebrand
Acknowledgements
Andrew Fulcher
Callie Meeks
David Sudderth
The Gage Hotel
Margie Mendoza
Nick Terry and Maryam
Reconicimentos
The Get Go
Katherine Shaughnessy and
F redericka H unter ,
2011
The Chinati Foundation /
La Fundacin Chinati,
the artists and authors /
los artistas y autores.
Melissa Keane
Emily Jo Cureton
$5.
Volume 16 / Volumen 16
October 2011 / Octubre de 2011
ISSN 1083-5555
Marfa 4H Club
Sterry Butcher
Grace Davis
Text by Donald Judd Judd Foundation 2011.
E mily R auh P ulitzer .
Presidio County and
The Dallas Opera
Ottowa
and
Hannah Powers
(19192007)
Chinati Foundation archives.
L L W W F o undati o n ,
University
Judd Foundation
Estella Cordero
c o nsej o directiv o h o n o rari o
Berta Jordan, Texas Tech
Jessie and Daniel Browning
Christina
New York City
per Gallery; 57, 65, 66 courtesy Marfa Public
courtesy Rupert Deese; 87 courtesy Zoe Leon-
Sir Nicholas Serota
38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49 Carl
Volker Dhne, courtesy Eva Meyer-Hermann;
Albert Bork
New York City
David Gouge
Tom Michael
Paul Graybeal
Colt Miller
Anne Adkins
Michael Green
Nicholas Miller
Elvia Agan
Ginger Griffice
Miniature Rooster
Melissa Kretschmer and Carl Andre
Elissa Gydish
Kristine Moore, Tnemec
Alexsandra Annello
Richard Harem
Valerie and Robert Arber
Alicia and Justin Haynes
Leigh Arnold
Kyle Hobratsch, Southern
Austin St Caf: Lisa and Jack Copeland
Methodist University
Company Incorporated
Caitlin Murray,
Judd Foundation
Eleonora Nagy, New York
Amiryani
Texas AgriLife Extension,
Presidio and Brewster Counties
Texas Master Naturalists

Tierra Grande Chapter
David Tompkins
Tumbleweed Laundry
Britt Webb
Emma Whelan, Center Space
Project, University of Texas,
Ballroom Marfa
Shelley and Harry Hudson
Rachel Neel
Glenn Bates
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Jgers,
Pace Gallery
Leslie Wilkes
Laura Belkin
Austin
Emma Perry
Gregg Wilson
Jennifer Bell
Miriam Johannesson
Carol Peterson
Christopher Wool
Joey Benton
O.B. and Kathleen Johnson
Phils Plumbing
Tim Johnson
Porters Thriftway
Mikronanalytisches Labor, Germany
Judith Birdsong, University of Texas, Austin

98
The Chinati Foundation

La Fundacin Chinati
(1987)
Last paragraph of Donald Judds statement

for the Chinati Foundation.
There are several short buildings. One will be a

museum for Fort Russell, which was originally Camp
Marfam a p o a . One will have some of Flavins
drawings for the six works. One should have the library
of art and architecture that was planned. One building
could contain the two dark rooms which Larry Bell
first constructed in his studio and then at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York, a great work which he
is willing to make again. I would like one building to
contain several paintings by Josef Albers, who is highly
regarded, but not highly enough. A lost chance was
to restore the adobe church in Ruidosa, near Sierra
Chinati, and ask Ken Price to make work for the
interior. Presidio County is poor economically and
politically, but it is, nevertheless, Raintree County.
Don Judd
Board of Directors
El ltimo prrafo de la Declaracin sobre la

Fundacin Chinati, de Donald Judd.
Hay varios edificios bajos. Uno se convertir en un museo

del Fuerte Russell, originalmente el Campamento Marfa,
ma p oa . En uno se acomodarn ciertos dibujos hechos
por Flavin al planear sus seis obras. Uno debe ser la sede
de la proyectada biblioteca de arte y arquitectura. Un edificio podra albergar los dos cuartos oscuros fotogrficos
construidos por Larry Bell primero en su estudio y luego
en el Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York, una gran
obra que l est dispuesto a realizar de nuevo. Me agradara que se instalaran en uno de los edificios varias pinturas
de Josef Albers, a quien se tiene en alta estima, aunque no
suficientemente alta. Se perdi la oportunidad de restaurar la iglesia de adobe en Ruidosa, cerca de la Sierra de
Chinati, y pedirle a Ken Price obras para el interior. El
Condado de Presidio es pobre econmica y polticamente
pero, a fin de cuentas, es el Condado de Raintree.
Don Judd
Mesa Directiva
99
Raintree County, by Ross Lockridge, Jr., tells the story of John

Shawnessy, resident of the mythical
small town, Waycross, and through
him, the story of America in the late
nineteenth entury. Through a series
of memories, told in such a way
that the past and the present appear to blend, the reader is asked
to feel the centrality of the small
town in the great changes of the nation. The final line of one chapter,
for example, taking place in 1848,
ends abruptly, but finds resolution
in the next, which takes place in
1875. The town itself consists of
one principle intersection, where
the National Road and the County
Road intersect, and is located in
an equally mythical Raintree, the
origin of whose name is contested.
The novel swells with the symbolic
resonance of these facts. Though
ambitious to connect the small and
local with the great and national,
the book is decidedly retrospective,
narrating a period whose coming
from innocence to experience must
still have seemed innocent when
the book was published, in 1947.
The book is, at the same time, however, anxious to remind the reader
that John Shawnessy, upon returning from the Civil War, found everything changed, and so discovered
a new self and town, and consequently, nation, to create.
Raintree County,escrito por Ross
Tim Johnson
T im J o hns o n
Marfa Book Company
Marfa Book Company
Lockridge, Jr., cuenta la historia de John

Shawnessy, residente de un pequeo
pueblo mtico, de nombre Waycross, y
a travs del mismo, narra la historIa de
Estados Unidos a fines del siglo XIX. Mediante una serie de recuerdos, contados
de tal manera que el pasado y el presente
parecen mezclarse, se le pide al lector que
trate de sentir la importancia, la centralidad de los pueblos pequeos la nacin en
el proceso de cambio por el que pasaba
la nacin. El rengln final de un captulo,
por ejemplo, el cual tiene lugar en l848,
termina abruptamente, pero encuentra la
solucin en el siguiente captulo, que se
desarrolla en 1875. El pueblo mismo consiste en una bocacalle principal, donde el
Camino Nacional y el Camino del Condado se cruzan, y se ubica en un igualmente
mtico Raintree, el origen de cuyo nombre
se cuestiona. La novela se desarrolla y
se engrandece con base en la resonancia simblica de estos hechos.Aunque
ambicioso por conectar lo pequeo y lo
local con lo grande y nacional, el libro es
de carcter decididamente retrospectivo,
captando un periodo en que la transicin
desde la inocencia a la experiencia debe
haber parecido todava inocente cuando
se public en l947. Sin embargo, la novela desea recordarle al lector que John
Shawnessy, a su regreso de la Guerra
Civil, encontr todo muy cambiado, y as
descubri que haba nuevas identidades
que l mismo, su pueblito, y la nacin entera deban forjarse.
Visitor information
Informacin para visitantes
The Chinati Foundation is accessible

by guided tour only, Wednesday
through Sunday. Reservations may
be made online at www.chinati.org.
La Fundacin Chinati se puede visitar

mediante recorrido organizado solamente, de mircoles a domingo. Sitio
para hacer reservaciones en lnea:
www.chinati.org.
P UB L IC T OU R S :
W EDNESDAY SUNDAY
RECORRIDOS ABIERTOS
AL PUBLICO:
Full Collection Tour

10:00 AM 3:30 PM
MIERCOLES DOMINGO
Two-hour lunch break from 12 PM 2 PM
Recorrido de la Coleccin Completa
$25 Adult / $10 Student
10:00 AM 3:30 PM
Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Inglfur Arnarsson,
Dos horas para comer, de medioda a 2:00 PM
John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn,
$25 Adultos / $10 Estudiantes
Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg
Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Inglfur Arnarsson,
and Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch,
John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn,
John Wesley, Special Exhibitions
Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg y

Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch,
Selections Tour
11:00 AM 1:00 PM
John Wesley, Exhibiciones Especiales
Recorrido de Obras Escogidas
Donald Judd, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin
11:00 AM 1:00 PM
Donald Judds
100 Works in Mill Aluminum
3:45 PM - 4:15 PM
Donald Judd, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin
de Donald Judd
100 Obras en Aluminio

3:45 PM 4:15 PM
The above tours are free to Chinati

members, children and students
under age 17, and residents of
Brewster, Jeff Davis and Presidio
counties.

Los recorridos anteriores son libres de
costo para miembros de Chinati, nios
y estudiantes menores de 17 aos, y
residentes de los condados de Brewster,
The Chinati Foundation is located at:

1 Cavalry Row
Marfa, Texas 79843
Jeff Davis y Presidio.

La Fundacin Chinati
se encuentra en:
tel. 432 729 4362

fax 432 729 4597
1 Cavalry Row
Marfa, Texas 79843
tel. 432 729 4362
email information@chinati.org
website www.chinati.org
fax 432 729 4597

e-mail information@chinati.org
www.chinati.org
Tours of Donald Judds residence,

la Mansana de Chinati, The Block,
and studio are offered through
the Judd Foundation.
Reservations can be made at
www.juddfoundation.org.
Recorridos de la residencia de Donald

Judd, la Mansana de Chinati, y su estudio estn disponibles por medio de la
Fundacin Judd, con reservaciones en
www.juddfoundation.org.
100
continued from back cover
continuacin de la cubierta trasera
open well after its twenty-fifth anniversary. It is not periodically changed,

as is common in many museums. And
it will remain relevant after 2011, for
it exemplifies how contemporary art
can be shown. Everything in Chinati
will remain as it isyet there will be
changes.
A regional, national, and international public visits Chinati five days
a week. It always takes several hours
to view the many installations distributed around the 340-acre estate,
as well as the works of John Chamberlain in the center of Marfa. It really requires an entire day. But we
have streamlined the guided tours
through Chinati. There are now docents who have many months and in
some cases years of experience with
the exhibition. Visitors can choose
between the Full Collection and the
Selections Tour. They can also confine
themselves to a highlight of the collection, Donald Judds 100 Untitled
Works in Mill Aluminum, in the Artillery Shedsan installation that Lewis
Hyde, in the Summer 2010 issue of
Artforum, referred to as the American Taj Mahal.
What is it then that should or needs
to be changed? In a memorable
sentence, Donald Judd described
the twentieth century as one of destruction one way or another of cities
and land. Again and again, Judd
opposed destruction. Writing about
the Ayala de Chinati, his home
and workplace in Marfa, which is
now owned by the Judd Foundation, he said, I hate to damage the
land, and elsewhere, the destruction of new land is a brutality. He
also wrote: Within a real view of the
world and the universe this violence
would be a sin. He came to the conclusion that preservation, conservation and restoration have become the
most necessary and positive and unlikely acts.
Indeed, the preservation of Chinati,
including the realization of dreams
Judd left behind, is now more than
ever the great task we will be faced
with in coming years. For despite its
stability, Chinatis campus shows evidence of needed repair. Many buildings must be better maintained; there
is a lot to be considered. John Volz,
a preservation architect from Austin,
Texas, inspected all Chinati buildings
in June 2011. According to his report,
the Chinati Foundation is now faced
with the long-term maintenance of
no tiene que darse prisa, a menos que

quisiera verlo antes del amanecer o
despus de la puesta del sol. Las exhibiciones permanentes del museo seguirn
abiertas mucho despus de su 25 aniversario. No est sujeto a cambios peridicos, como es usual en los museos.
Y aun despus de 2011 conservar su
relevancia, ya que ejemplifica cmo
puede exhibirse el arte contemporneo.
Todo en Chinati se quedar tal y como
esty sin embargo habr cambios.
Un pblico regional, nacional e internacional visita Chinati cinco das por semana. Requiere varias horas visitar las
diversas instalaciones distribuidas por
un terreno de 340 acres, junto con las
obras de John Chamberlain en el centro
de Marfa. Se tarda realmente un da entero. Pero hemos aligerado los recorridos organizados. Contamos ahora con
guas con muchos meses, y en algunos
casos hasta aos, de experiencia con la
coleccin. Los visitantes pueden optar
por un recorrido de la coleccin completa o un recorrido selectivo, o pueden
enfocarse en un aspecto especfico, las
100 obras en aluminio de Donald Judd,
una instalacin a la que Lewis Hyde, en
el nmero de verano de 2010 de la revista Artforum llam el Taj Mahal de
los Estados Unidos.
Entonces, qu es lo que se debe o se
necesita cambiar? Donald Judd caracteriz, en una frase memorable, al siglo
veinte como la destruccin, en una u
otra forma, de las ciudades y el terreno. En repetidas ocasiones Judd se
opuso a dicha destruccin. Al respecto
de la Ayala de Chinati, su hogar y
lugar de trabajo en Marfa, actualmente
propiedad de la Fundacin Judd, el artista afirm: Odio daar el terreno. Y
en otras ocasiones dijo: la destruccin
del terreno nuevo es una brutalidad,
Dentro de una concepcin real del
mundo y el universo, esta violencia sera un pecado. Lleg a la conclusin de
que la preser vacin, la conservacin y
la restauracin se han convertido en las
acciones ms necesarias y positivas, y
ms improbables.
Ciertamente, la conservacin de Chinati, incluyendo la realizacin de los sueos que Judd dej atrs, es ahora ms
que nunca la gran tarea que enfrentaremos en los aos venideros, pues a
pesar de su estabilidad, los predios de
Chinati muestran indicios de que necesitan mejoras. Muchos edificios requieren
un mantenimiento ms asiduo; otros
necesitan reparaciones. Hay mucho
que considerar. John Volz, de Austin,
Texas, un arquitecto especializado en
the buildings and needs to develop

a philosophy of maintenance that will
allow the design integrity of the buildings to be maintained in an efficient
and economical manner.
Judd wanted to preserve something,
the landscape, and to create something, his art in an ensemble of existing buildings. That was the reason
why he came to Marfa. Now that
many of his installations and those of
his most highly esteemed friends are
between ten and thirty years old, we,
the successors, must take up again the
subject of preservation. We must determine what steps are required, define their scope, and then take those
steps. To this end, we need to gather
knowledge about the buildings and
consult the most capable experts. In
the coming months we intend to prepare a symposium that could take
place in 2013. The issue is to determine the relationship between art,
architecture, and landscape in a site
that is and will continue to be part of
our global cultural heritage. The next
twenty-five years of the Chinati Foundation begin in the fall of 2011.
Our first initiative will be to restore
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van
Bruggens 1993 Monument to the Last
Horse in the spring of 2012. Claes
Oldenburg encouraged us to take
this path. Bettina Landgrebe, Chinatis conservator, submitted a detailed
condition report and, by means of
extensive testing procedures, determined how the somewhat weatherbeaten sculpture can be repaired and
preserved for the future. All friends of
Chinati are invited to help in this process and, where possible, lend financial assistance.
We are proud and happy to have
received once again a great deal of
support for Chinati. My thanks go first
and foremost to the board of directors, and primarily to Arlene Dayton,
our president, for their constant and
great commitment. Our board has
decided to focus our attention on
annual programs, preservation, and
future projects; in the coming years,
this holistic approach will govern our
thinking. In short, we expect to plan
even better, communicate even more
effectively, and move toward the future with clear resolution.
My heartfelt thanks go out to the
staff, to our chief operations officer
Marella Consolini, to our chief financial officer Kelly Sudderth, and
to Rob Weiner, our curator at large,
whose efforts have already guided
Chinatis first steps in the direction of
change. Thanks are also due to Ann
Marie Nafziger, who is responsible
for a growing education program, as

well as to numerous other staff members. I want to thank the authors of
our Newsletter, artists Richard Deacon and Josiah McElheny, Eva Meyer-Hermann, Caitlin Murray, Lonn
Taylor, and Jeffrey Weiss, for this
newest issue of an art magazine that
has existed since 1995. As in previous years, Rob Weiner collected and
oversaw the contributions to the magazine as its editor. Rutger Fuchs was,
once again, the designer. Our special
thanks go to Carl Andre, as Chinati
Thirteener, the beautiful piece that
plays the key-role in this newsletter,
has been donated by the artist in late
2010.
We hope the contents of this issue will
bring pleasure and insight to the mem-
conservacin, inspeccion todos los

edificios de Chinati en junio de 2011.
En su reporte afirma: La Fundacin Chinati debe abordar ahora la cuestin del
mantenimiento de sus edificios a largo
plazo y debe desarrollar una filosofa
del mantenimiento que permita preservar la integridad de diseo de los edificios en forma eficiente y econmica.
Judd quiso preservar algoel paisajey crear algosu arte en un conjunto de edificios existentes. Por ese motivo vino a Marfa. Ahora, cuando muchas
de sus instalaciones y las de sus amigos
ms estimados tienen entre 10 y 30
aos de edad, nosotros, los sucesores,
debemos ocuparnos de su conser vacin. Debemos precisar las medidas que
hay que tomar, definir sus dimensiones
y luego dar los pasos correspondientes.
para el futuro. Invitamos a todos los

amigos de Chinati a prestar su ayuda
en este proceso, aportando, cuando sea
posible, su apoyo econmico.
Estamos orgullosos y contentos por haber recibido nuevamente mucho apoyo
para Chinati. Mis agradecimientos son,
primero y ante todo, para la Mesa Directiva y muy especialmente para Arlene Dayton, nuestra presidenta, por su
considerable y constante compromiso.
La Mesa Directiva ha decidido atender
ante todo a los Programas Anuales, la
Conser vacin, y los Proyectos a Futuro,
y en los prximos aos este enfoque
holstico tendr prioridad. En suma,
deseamos planificar aun mejor, comunicarnos aun ms eficazmente y avanzar
hacia el futuro con resolucin y una visin clara.
Mis ms sinceros agradecimientos a
nuestro personal, a Marella Consolini,
Directora Ejecutiva; a Kelly Sudderth,
Contralora; y a Rob Weiner, Curador,
cuyos esfuerzos han venido guiando ya
los pasos que Chinati debe dar en direccin al cambio. Gracias igualmente
a Ann Marie Nafziger, responsable del
crecimiento de nuestro Programa Educativo, y tambin a numerosos miembros ms de nuestro personal. Deseo
dar las gracias a los autores de nuestro Boletn, Richard Deacon and Josiah
McElheny, Eva Meyer-Hermann, Caitlin
Murray, Lonn Taylor, and Jeffrey Weiss,
que colaboraron en este nmero de una
revista de arte que se edita anualmente
desde 1995. Al igual que en aos previos, Rob Weiner reuni y supervis
dichas colaboraciones. Rutger Fuchs
vuelve a ser, como en aos anteriores,
el diseador.
Esperamos que el contenido del presente nmero de nuestro boletn sea informativo y del agrado de los miembros.
Para lograrlo, debemos informarnos

ms acerca de los edificios y consultar
con peritos competentes. Durante el ao
bers and friends of Chinati. We will

be delighted if you accompany us on
our path into the future from 2012 on.
Nos encantar tenerlos como acompa-
Most sincerely,
Thomas Kellein
Director
Atentamente,
antes en el camino hacia el futuro, de

2012 en adelante.
que viene pensamos planear un simposio, proyectado para el ao 2013, con

el propsito de examinar la relacin
entre arte, arquitectura y paisaje en un
sitio que es y continuar siendo parte
de nuestra herencia cultural global. Los
prximos 25 aos de la Fundacin Chinati comienzan en el otoo de 2011.
Nuestro primer cometido ser la restauracin, en primavera de 2012, del
Monumento al ltimo caballo (1993), de
Claes Oldenburg y Coosje van Bruggen.
El mismo Oldenburg fue quien nos anim a seguir este camino. Bettina Landgrebe, nuestra restauradora, ha elaborado un detallado reporte de condicin
y, mediante diversas y exhaustivas
pruebas, ha descubierto cmo esta escultura, algo deteriorada por la intemperie, puede ser reparada y preser vada
101
Thomas Kellein
Director
A Message from the Director

Un Mensaje del Director
as a cultural center, even though it

is situated far from any big city or
well-known tourist attraction. Chinati
is and remains an ideal. It is a site
that exhibits art in accord with the artists conceptions, which is to say: authentically, without compromise. The
buildings that house the works were
not constructed for that purpose; they
were already there. The surrounding
countryside was not first destroyed
and then built up again. Rather, nature exhibits herself in magnificent
collaboration with the works of art.
The rooms that Judd and his artist
friends acquired for their work in
1982 have never been structurally altered. There are no temporary walls
made of plaster or sheetrock. You
dont have to step into small alcoves
como objetos sagrados en un magnfico depsito de tesoros, comprendemos

hasta qu grado Judd se sinti inspirado por los ms sublimes logros culturales. En Marfa, Texas, aproximadamente
medio siglo ms tarde y exactamente
25 aos despus del establecimiento
de la Fundacin Chinati en 1986, nos
encontramos nuevamente ante un complejo de edificios relativamente remoto,
pero rigurosamente innovador, que
atrae la atencin de todo el mundo: El
enorme antimuseo ubicado en una antigua base militar donde estuvieron internados prisioneros de guerra alemanes durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial
contiene instalaciones a gran escala,
mayormente especficas al sitio, deca
The Wall Street Journal hace apenas
unas semanas, agregando una advertencia para los visitantes: Se requieren
It is fantastic that a building was

built hundreds of miles from any
art in order to house art from five
thousand miles away and usually
centuries before. It is an incredible
idea of art and culture.
reser vaciones. Lleven agua.

Desde la publicacin de nuestro boletn
del ao pasado, Chinati ha atrado ms
atencin de los medios que nunca antes.
Han aparecido ms de una docena de
artculos de fondo en publicaciones de
arte, peridicos y revistas. La televisin
Donald Judd, Kansas City Report,
alemana tambin transmiti extensos
Arts Magazine, December 1963
reportajes sobre Chinati. Los visitantes

siguen llegando, viendo en Chinati un
centro cultural, a pesar de su situacin
Donald Judds essay on the Nelson

Gallery and the Atkins Museum in
Kansas City expressed some misgivings, but mostly a great deal of admiration. When he speaks of an encyclopedic collection of works of art
from all over the world enshrined in
a superb treasure chamber, we can
see the extent to which he was inspired by great, indeed by the greatest cultural achievements. In Marfa,
Texas, roughly half a century later
and precisely twenty-five years after
the founding of the Chinati Foundation in 1986, we are again dealing
with a cutting-edge and comparatively remote building complex that is
attracting international acclaim: The
sprawling antimuseumon a former
army base that held German POWs
during World War IIfeatures largescale, mostly site-specific installations, wrote the Wall Street Journal
just a few weeks ago, not failing to
add, for the benefit of visitors: Reservations are required. Bring water.
Since the publication of Newsletter
Vol. 15 at the end of 2010, Chinati
has enjoyed more media attention
than ever before. Over a dozen extensive articles have appeared in art
publications, newspapers, and magazines. In addition, lengthy reports
on the site were featured on German
television. Visitors continue to engage
with our contemporary art museum
geogrfica lejos de ciudades grandes y

atracciones tursticas. Chinati es y sigue
siendo un ideal. Es un sitio que exhibe
arte de acuerdo con la concepcin de
los artistas, es decir, con autenticidad,
con integridad, sin concesiones. Los edificios que albergan las obras no fueron
construidos con este propsito: ya se
encontraban all. El terreno circundante no fue destruido para ser luego reconstruido: ms bien, la naturaleza se
exhibe all en magnfica colaboracin
con las obras de arte. Tampoco se hi-
Es fantstico que se haya construido

un edificio a cientos de millas de
cualquier arte, para albergar obras de
arte tradas desde lugares a cinco mil
millas de distancia y pertenecientes, en
su mayora, a siglos pasados. Es una
idea increble del arte y de la cultura.
Donald Judd, Kansas City Report,
Arts Magazine, Diciembre de 1963
En su ensayo sobre la Galera Nelson y

Museo Atkins, de Kansas City, Donald
Judd
expresa
cierta
incertidumbre,
pero mucha admiracin. Al leer lo que

escribe sobre una coleccin enciclopdica de obras de arte provenientes
de todas partes del mundo, exhibidas
to view the art. In each instance, the

entirety of the surrounding space is involved. That includes the presence of
daylight, which is allowed to stream
in through uncurtained windows.
There is ample room for the art and
its viewers to breathe in.
When I undertook the directorship
of this museum in January 2011, I
was primarily grateful to Marianne
Stockebrand, who presided here
since the end of 1994, and to Rob
Weiner, who was continually active
at her side. Not only is the museum
intact, not only does it have an excellent reputation, but it is also financially secure, if somewhat fragile like
most non-profits in the current climate.
There is no need to hurry if one wants
to visit Chinati u nless, of course,
one wants to see it before sunrise or
after nightfall. This museums permanent exhibition will continue to be
cieron modificaciones estructurales a

las salas que Judd y sus amigos artistas
adquirieron para su obra. Uno no tiene
que entrar en cuartitos para apreciar el
arte. En cada caso, la integridad del espacio circundante se incorpora a la experiencia, y eso incluye la presencia de
la luz diurna, que penetra por ventanas
no cubiertas por cortinas. Hay espacio
de sobra para que respiren las obras y
quienes las contemplan.
Cuando yo asum el cargo de este museo en enero de 2001, me sent agradecido sobre todo con Marianne Stockebrand, quien haba presidido el lugar
desde 1993, y con Rob Weiner, que ha
laborado tan activamente a su lado. El
museo est intacto y ha mantenido su
excelente reputacin, pero no slo eso:
tambin es seguro econmicamente,
aunque un poco frgil, como la mayora
de las organizaciones sin fines de lucro
en el clima actual. El visitante a Chinati

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Chinati Foundation newsletter vol 16

Los trminos de Andre

Fort D.A. Russell, Marfa

Carl Andres words

Las palabras de Carl Andre

Twentieth Century Engineering (1964)

Carl Andre: Place Matters

Looking From: Platforms for looking at art

C o v e r p h o t o graph b y Ric h ard Deac on, se e pa ge 5 0 .

Artists In Residence, 20102011

Artistas en Residencia, 20102011

Fin de semana en Chinati, 2011

Reconocimientos, mesa directiva,

Chinati Weekend 2011

A Message from the Director

Un Mensaja del Director

Ca rl A nd re . Ch i n at i T h irt ee ne r , M a rfa , T x , 2010 . C h in at i F ou n d at io n .

46 Roa r in g F o rt ie s, M ad r i d, 198 8. K on r a d F i sc h e r Ga ll er ie , D ss el d orf, G erm a n y.

T h e Si g n o f Im m o rta l it y ( Da D a F or g er ie s) , 196 3. T h e J u d d F ou n dat i on .

Zi n c Rib b o n , A n twerp, 196 9. S ol om o n R . G u g g e nh e im M u se u m , N ew Y ork , Pa n z a C ollec t io n , 19 91.

Los trminos de Andre

Jeffrey Weiss Los trminos de Andre

La escultura de Carl Andre es estructuralmente dependiente de la cuadrcula y

Carl Andres sculpture is structurally

adheridos (una propiedad a la que uno

Cu t s, Ottawa , C a na d a , 1979 ( re ma d e, d estroyed ) . Pa ul a C o ope r Ga ll e ry,

la Galera Dwan en marzo de l967, una

Jeffrey Weiss Andres Terms

mented, in turn, by the rotation of the

la experiencia en una para la obra

La cmara de Stieglitz es relevante: disparando hacia el cielo fija la inclinacin

Equ ival en t s I-VIII, Tib or de N a gy Ga ll ery, Ne w York, 1966.

and, as a result, the influence of perceptual experience on ones bodily

Jeffrey Weiss Andres Terms

photographic condition for Andres

number of conventions and systems

Mientras que el rcord fotogrfico es explcitamente extrao a la obra de Andre,

versus la perspectiva sin fijar, y de una

Jeffrey Weiss Los trminos de Andre

in Peirces text on a file card, treating them as atoms or particles, and

hablado segn refleja experiencias vividas que de un juego de piezas y

de formas no sintcticas en la inscripcin

Alfred Stie g litz , E q u iva l e nt , 19 2 9 . T h e Alfr e d Stie g l itz C o lle ct io n,

nized according to the most common

donde trabaj durante principios de los

spacing system that would allow the

Dado el significado fundamental de secuencias permutantes de la forma en el

que me parecieron ms poderosamente

Jeffrey Weiss Los trminos de Andre

than form as an operative term. As

de que tal esquema produce obras que

que las fotografas de nubes no llegan

Alfred Stie g litz , E q u iva l e nt , 19 2 9 . T h e Alfr e d Stie g l itz C o lle ct io n,

the familiar world after all, but from

radas en cuadrcula de dos capas superpuestas a la ausencia de la forma. En

and after installation, dispersion being, in a manner of speaking, the

dad las energas radiantes de todo lo

parente. Las obras de Andre implican

Jeffrey Weiss Andres Terms

dium and making (not fabrication per

recurri a esta tcnica slo unas cuantas

llamar su cualidad de abierta, su movilidad con respecto a la des-orientacin

Alfred Stie g litz , E q u iva l e nt , 19 2 6 . T h e Alfr e d Stie g l itz C o lle ct io n,

if assembling the work according to a