PRESS RELEASE

ONE Copenhagen
STALKE UP NORTH
June 6 – July 11, 2009

Curators:
Dove Bradshaw and Sam Jedig

Artists:
William Anastasi, Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Dove Bradshaw, Melissa Kretschmer, Janet Passehl, Søren Dahlgaard, Torben Ebbesen, Kristian Hornsleth, Sam Jedig, Lone Mertz, and Nikolaj Recke

ONE, in memory of Sol LeWitt, was curated by Dove Bradshaw. It premiered December 2007 at the Björn Ressle Gallery, New York. It will now be shown at Stalke Up North in Copenhagen under the title ONE Copenhagen. For this exhibition, six Americans who originally participated will be accompanied by six Danes selected in consultation with Sam Jedig, founder of Stalke. For both exhibitions, Bradshaw asked each artist to offer a work made from a single material. The materials for this exhibition will include steel, copper, vinyl, plaster, fat, magnets, bronze, graphite, beeswax, glass, paper, and felt.

Bradshaw followed the first ONE exhibition with a less reductive premise titled One More. This premiered at the Esbjerg Museum of Modern Art in May 2008; in January it traveled to the Thomas Rehbein Gallery in Cologne. Jacob Lillemose’s text for the Esbjerg catalogue could equally apply to the ONE exhibitions where he wrote that the works were associated with "the expansive aesthetic field opened up by the emergence of Conceptual Art and Minimalism in the 1960s."

"Both of these movements," he continued, "were critical and imaginative reactions against formalism, which had become in effect a straitjacket, and both were concerned with art as a general concept rather than with a specific medium. Conceptual art, as the critic Lucy Lippard famously argued, often involved a 'dematerialization' of the art object, while Minimalism, on the other hand, generally took the form of what Donald Judd called 'specific objects'; [but as the ONE exhibitions show] "the two movements were closely connected and in fact often overlapped. The connection involves an understanding of materials, and of their physical and visual properties, as integral parts of conceptual processes, systems, and objects."

"The [ONE] exhibitions point beyond the widespread understanding of the conceptual and the material aspects of art as mutually excluding opposites. Insisting on a more integrated and dynamic relation between the two aspects, the works in the show institute an exchange between the abstractness of ideas and the concrete presence of materials — the conceptual becomes materially manifest and the material demonstrates conceptual qualities. The scope of thinking expands through materials, the material world expands through conceptual logics — an expansion paradoxically produced with reduced means, as in Minimal art. But paradox is the point here: by keeping their use of materials simple and clear, the works present materials in a state of potential, of openness.

The works in the [ONE exhibitions] concern themselves with neither the rational mastery of the intellectual world nor the beautification of the material world. Instead, they pose exploratory, irrational, enigmatic questions of the material world, questions that lead to new meanings and new experiences, to paraphrase LeWitt’s "Sentences on Conceptual Art" from 1969."

"They reflect human involvement in a world without any essential, universal qualities in its materials. Instead of understanding the world according to established principles, whether aesthetic, philosophical, or material, these works let it unfold in ways that challenge any notion of finite meaning. The phenomenal world that they address cannot be explained or defined, cannot be taken for granted—can only be experienced, continuously rediscovered, full of subtle surprises, differences, and possibilities."

"ONE then, conforms to no conventional notion of experience, no conventional logic of finitude. Guided by the multidirectional compass of art, the show is based on a fundamental wonder about materials—about what is, and about the fact that it is. This is an art devoid of illusions, whether of the eye or of the mind. Yet it is certainly not an art of disillusion—on the contrary, it understands the relation between the conceptual and the material as a rich, productive aesthetic potential, one far exceeding preexisting structures of meaning and taste. In bypassing those structures, the works put materials into conceptual play, a play of countless poetic and philosophical sensibilities."
(Jacob Lillemose, ONE More catalogue, 2008)

Interview: Carl Andre
[24th June 2009]

Carl Andre: 15 CuION, 2002. 10 x 30 x 50 cm. Copper.

Interview: Carl Andre

One, in memory of Sol LeWitt, was originally curated by Dove Bradshaw and shown at the Björn Ressle Gallery, New York, in December 2007. Now, it is on view again at Stalke Up North under the title One Copenhagen. For both exhibitions, Bradshaw asked each artist to offer a work made from a single material. Copenhagen meets the American minimalist artist Carl Andre, who shows the artwork 15 CuION at Stalke.

Carl Andre (born 1935) studied art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, from 1951 to 1953. In 1965, Carl Andre held his first public exhibition of work at the Shape and Structure show at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. Through the years, Carl Andre has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. Latest solo exhibitions: Iron, Yvon Lambert, Paris (2008), Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels, Belgium (2008), Cu Al, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany (2008), Al C Cu Fe Pb Sn, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz, Switzerland (2008), and Western Red Cedar, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2008).

Interviewer: Louise Steiwer

Participants in the exhibition include: William Anastasi (US), Carl Andre (US), Dove Bradshaw (US), Lone Mertz, Kristian von Hornsleth, Nikolaj Recke, Sam Jedig, Søren Dalgaard, Torben Ebbesen, Robert Berry, Melissa Kretschmer, Janet Passehl.

Could you introduce the piece you show at the exhibition?
I did not choose 15 CuION for this exhibition. It was available in Switzerland. It is an excellent specimen of my sculpture.

How did you title the work and why?
I think the title is very simple. Most titles are descriptive. A smaller number have subjective associations. My abstract portraits of friends and artists I admire are examples of such associations.

How does the piece relate to the theme of the exhibition One?
The exhibition of my work always springs from the works themselves. The works are not influenced by the conditions of the exhibition. Curating an exhibition of sculpture is as difficult as making the sculpture. Of course, great works of art tend to have a profound sense of simplicity to them. I believe the greatest works are both simple and complex, like Bach’s fugues.

I believe with Walter Pater that all art aspires to the condition of music. I am incapable of producing any notes on pitch and in rhythm, but I love all good music, from blues to jazz, bebop, and beyond.

How does your work interact with the gallery space and with other works of art in the exhibition?
How they interact is how they interact.

This show was originally made as an homage to Sol LeWitt. Why did you find it interesting to participate in such an exhibition? What does the work of Sol LeWitt mean to you?

Sol LeWitt was among the very finest artists of his generation. When I taught art, I found that Sol LeWitt’s art was the only art that did not lead students into the corruption of imagination. Sol’s work liberated the students in their work. Sol was impossible to imitate. I once asked Sol if he was disturbed when a student tried to make a Sol LeWitt. He said no: if it was good, it would just be another Sol LeWitt.

Industrial processes of creation seem to have remained a consistent theme in your work throughout your career. What fascinates you about these?
Yes, but I never use any industrial processes of creation. The suppliers of my materials use industrial processes, not me. I grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, a city of granite quarrying and carving and shipbuilding of all varieties. There are no more sculptural manufacturing than those two. Great blocks of granite to be carved in gravestone works and acres of immense steel plates waiting to be formed into the curvaceous hulls of ships. All art is erotic!

Thank you.

Carl Andre

 (foto sam Jedig)