64 Aluminum Squares, 1969
CARL ANDRE AND DONALD JUDD
in Andre’s studio
July 11, 1970
CARL ANDRE:
When I first
made my twelve inch copper plates
last year, I admit now I was thinking of Rothko, those
magisterial
canvases of magenta and red, and
I wanted to genuflect in a Jew’s studio: the silence
of the paintings
was almost unbearable, and I told
Mark that until these works only Titian and Botticelli
had license
to such red, and then on February
25th – it is impossible to forget – he lay in a bathtub
of blood,
the porcelain saturated with crimson,
as though he was saying, that’s it, there is no more
to do, and
then last week Barney died, and I have
this exhibit in two months at the Guggenheim
and it is
hopeless because Newman never compromised,
not that son-of-a-bitch who painted those stations
over ten years
that will breathe for hundreds more,
and me, I have a stack of bricks, (’66), my copper
squares, lead
squares, aluminum, and just now I know
I am a charlatan, a sycophant, a fucking brakeman
on the railroad
for four years, an idiot from Quincy,
Mass. of all places, who is presumptuous enough
to have quoted Brancusi
and even Henry Moore, but
you know what – and I may be drunk as hell and if
you ever repeat this I
will say you kissed up to
Clement Greenberg, and that is about as evil
as anything I can think of – my favorite work
is my aluminum
plates, the 64 eight inch squares
sitting over there, and they are nothing without Rothko
and Newman,
and what Waldmann will write
for the Guggenheim catalog is that the work
is part of a new American post-modernism- Judd
and Flavin,
not to slight you Donald, but she will say
that Flavin was first, his ’64 fluorescents, the Tatlins,
his homage
to you, and I was second, and your stacks
were last, which are ironically, aluminum, at least most
of them, and
though you deny it, have you ever thought
that they are really pictures as well, thick canvases
on the wall,
and as much as you may say that Beuys
is a fascist, let’s face it, he lined up objects like salami slices
before you
or I even dreamed of aluminum objects,
which in my case is admittedly more about the material
than the fabrication,
more about a reflection of our
humanness, our earth, our natural elements, the gravity
that keeps
our feet to the ground, without embellishment,
without Plexiglas which you have added to those stacks,
which doesn’t mean
that I don’t like them, which I do
very much, it’s your constant need for perfection, for every
angle and
joint to be perfect, everything is perfect, and me,
I just wanted a bunch of aluminum plates, store bought,
store cut,
maybe 3/8 inch thick, with any imperfection
that may be intrinsic to the aluminum, and then we line
them up in any order as
long as they form a square, and
then you know what, I don’t give a shit if they walk on it,
in fact I
would prefer that they do because then my 64 squares
come between humans and the ground they walk on, to
step on my
canvas if you will, and yes, there is some Beuys
here and some Duchamp, but look, Marcel didn’t mean for
anyone to
use his shovel, to use his bicycle wheel, and as
much as he deobjectified the object, the clever bastard always
foresaw its
museum context, its preciousness, and I think
that art really is more than thinking it is art, it is a connection
at its best
between the molecules of being human and the molecules
of the earth that makes our living possible: sand, aluminum,
lead, copper
– and if not for gravity then we wouldn’t have bones,
we would hover without form, and I am not certain then
how humans
make love, how they eat and regurgitate and begin
over, how they will understand art unless they understand
it is in their
cells, in the frigging dirt under their feet, and when
they look down at the aluminum the sky and the lights
are reflective,
exactly because this has nothing to do with
mirrors, this is about collecting tickets on the train, this is
about walking
along Broadway, going in and out of each shop
on Canal, the linen stores on Grand, peering into the pastry shops
on Mott, and
you know what – at the Guggenheim they will
cordon off my aluminum, a guard with epaulets won’t let
children near
and they will grow up thinking that art
is the pastry paintings and doilies in the Met, that art is about
people with
talent who paint with brushes, landscapes
and still lifes and they will never know that the kickstand
on their Schwinn
is elegant, their grandmother’s
kneecap, the arc of Koufax’s throw to home plate, which is
why I made
these fucking things – 64 aluminum squares.
DONALD JUDD:
Just six weeks ago Eva Hesse died, May 29th
to be precise,
and it is she that I constantly bicker
with, not Rothko or Newman; Eva, only thirty-four,
(brain tumor,
for God sakes), and that twenty-eight
year-old, Bruce Nauman – both of them – latex,
cement, rope,
rubber, fiberglass – discord, finger-
prints, footprints – they are everywhere in their art,
and I am removing
myself as far as possible –
not a mark, not a finger scratch on my new progression,
and to be
perfectly truthful I don’t think it’s Barney either,
or even Rothko that you struggle against, I think it’s
Warhol –
your 64 aluminum squares in opposition to his 64
Jackies, the Marilyns, postage stamps, soup cans,
all so orderly
and squared off, especially the grey ones,
the grey Elvises, and all you did was rant and rave
when we first
saw them at Leo’s in ’62, and you and
Flavin were stone drunk as usual threatening to draw
mustaches
on the Marilyns like Duchamp did to a Mona Lisa drawing,
(I had to remind you), and thank goodness for Bob Rauschenberg,
who slapped
you hard on the back and said take it back
to your studio kid, kick the shit out of these, make these Marilyns
disappear,
and that my friend is what this aluminum work is,
the negation of the 64 Warhol images, the Marilyns and
Jackies
flat on their backs, gone, exactly where they belong,
and today I can tell you that it was a truly lucky turn
of events,
and really lucky that we had forgotten at the time
that Bob Rauschenberg had destroyed a Duchamp.
CARL ANDRE:
We are at
war: 10 boxes, 64 squares, it doesn’t matter
really whose head we piss on, as long as they are crushed
beneath our
feet – Beuys, Newman, Warhol, Rothko, and
in my case, all carefully hidden under aluminum plates,
stepped on,
a memory trace at best, and let’s face it,
it’s always been this way, Picasso standing on Cezanne’s
head, Henry
Moore on Arp, Rothko on the Fauves –
and if I am lucky a whole lot of shitheads not yet
in those prissy
art schools will try to piss on me.
