"Oral history interview with Carl Andre, 1972 September; in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution"

“pdf Carl Andre, writer - by James Meyer”

“I realized the wood was better before I cut it, than after. I did not improve it in any way .”

“The course of development”

“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.”

“The Duchamp thing is played both ways. The 'Urinal' signed R. Mutt, is played as an art object, and then as the opposite of a legitimate art object. And it vacillates back and forth. Well perhaps that is a nice thing, but I don't know. I find Duchampianism a bore. It's very adolescent. I was very much excited by it when I was a teenager.. .My tradition is quite different. My conscious tradition is through Constantin Brâncuși, and Brancusi just strikes me as an infinitely wiser and infinitely more talented, an infinitely stronger figure than Duchamp. I think I could have done my work if Duchamp had not lived. I could not have done my work if Brancusi had not lived.”

“My work is atheistic, materialistic and communistic. It's atheistic because it's without transcendent form, without spiritual or intellectual quality. Materialistic because it's made out of it's own materials without pretension to other materials. And communistic because the form is equally accessible to all men.”