Carl Andre

Quincy Carl Andre

In a 1973 interview, Minimalist sculptor and poet Carl Andre (born 1935) proclaimed: "I am a native son of Quincy, Massachusetts, proud of the town whether the town is proud of me or not." In lieu of an exhibition catalogue for his 1973 solo show at the Addison Gallery, Andre hired a commercial photographer to document landscapes from his hometown. Taken in the winter of that year, the resulting images of Quincy's snow-covered headstones and monuments were composed into this artist's book (the wry cover image is of a locally quarried headstone reading "Andre"). The stark black-and-white photographs focus on the industrial, working-class side of the city--the shipyard, railroad tracks, cranes and granite quarries--as well as on the creeks and dirt roads of its desolate wooded outskirts. An unusual work within Andre's oeuvre, this artist's book hints at the origins of his sculptural aesthetic.