Just as Carl Andre's sculptures are andquot;cutsandquot; of elemental materials, his writings are condensed expressions, andquot;cutsandquot; of language that emphasize the part rather than the whole. Andre, a central figure in minimalism and one of the most influential sculptors of our time, does not produce the usual critical essay. He has said that he is andquot;not a writer of prose,andquot; and the texts included in Cutsandmdash;the most comprehensive collection of his writings yet publishedandmdash;appear in a wide variety of forms that are pithy and poetic rather than prosaic. Some texts are statements, many of them fifty words or less, written for catalog entries and press releases. Others are Socratic dialogues, interwoven statements, or in the form of questionnaires and interviews. Still others are lettersandmdash;public and private, lengthy missives and postcards. Some are epigrams and maxims (for example, on Damian Hirst: I DON'T FEAR HIS SHARK. I FEAR HIS FORMALDEHYDE) and some are planar poems, words and letters arranged and rearranged into different patterns. They are organized alphabetically by subject, under such entries as andquot;Art and Capitalism,andquot; andquot;Childhood,andquot; andquot;Entropy (After Smithson),andquot; andquot;Matter,andquot; andquot;My Work,andquot; andquot;Other Artists,andquot; and andquot;Poetry,andquot; and they include Andre's reflections on Michelangelo and Duchamp, on Stein and Marx, and such contemporaries as Eva Hesse, Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, and Damien Hirst.

Carl Andre's writing and its materialityandmdash;its stress on the visual and tactile qualities of languageandmdash;takes its place beside his sculpture and its materiality, its revelation of andquot;matter as matter rather than matter as symbol.andquot; Both assert the ethical and political primacy of matter in a culture that prizes the replica, the insubstantial, and the virtual. andquot;I am not an idealist as an artist,andquot; says Andre. andquot;I try to discover my visions in the conditions of the world. It's the conditions which are important.andquot;

"While Andre's minimalist contemporaries Robert Smithson and Donald Judd are almost as revered for their writings as for their art, Andre has, until now, had his greatest textual presence in Lucy Lippard's acclaimed assemblage Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, which features a number of Andre interviews and texts. The title of this collection is remarkably apt. It features text that has been snipped out of letters and notebooks, poems and aphorisms that have accumulated over nearly 50 years, artist's statements demanded by varying shows in various eras, and material from interviews. These 'cuts' have been sutured together by Meyer (Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties) and edited by him 'for clarity and flow.' (As for Andre, 'the vast majority of the texts he did not touch.') The results seem to reflect the editor's vision as much as the artist's, with ponderous headings ('Form' 'Infinity' 'Mass' 'Time') providing scant context for what largely feels like an artist's process work. They undoubtedly add to our knowledge of an important artist and of a crucial era in American art (particularly in Andre's many writings about other artists), but as a book, they do not add up to more than a miscellany. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

andquot;Such books are invaluable for the art historian, documenting ideas in gestation and formation, and for the general art reader in revealing something of the persona of the artist.andquot;
andmdash; Detroit Metro Times

andquot;Andre's work, like his writing, is composed of separate pieces - cuts - reassembled in a playful and thoughtful way.andquot;
andmdash; Afterimage

Statements, dialogue, letters, epigrams, and poems by sculptor Carl Andre, a central figure in minimalism.

Carl Andre's writing and its materiality — its stress on the visual and tactile qualities of language — takes its place beside his sculpture and its materiality, its revelation of matter as matter rather than matter as symbol. Both assert the ethical and political primacy of matter in a culture that prizes the replica, the insubstantial, and the virtual. I am not an idealist as an artist, says Andre. I try to discover my visions in the conditions of the world. It's the conditions which are important.

Carl Andre is a sculptor and poet.James Meyer is Associate Professor of Art History at Emory University. He is the author of Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties and the editor of The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous and Other Writings 1986-2003 by Gregg Bordowitz (MIT Press, 2004).