Carl Andre: A Concrete Poet?

Abstract

The identity of the global concrete movement has depended on a set of explicit and implicit categories that enables critics, readers, and curators to differentiate what counts as concrete poetry from what does not. This paper takes as its starting point the classification of two very similar works of art, One Hundred Sonnets (1963) by the US American minimal artist Carl Andre and the series M 40. Dattilogrammi (1964/65) by Italian artist and poet Maurizio Nannucci. Both are works on paper; both are based on the multiple repetition of linguistic elements in the form of a square; and both were written with a typewriter. Despite these similarities, the two works have been treated completely differently: Andre’s work has been received as work of Minimal Art, and Nannucci’s as an example of concrete poetry. The attribution of these two phenomenologically and conceptually very similar works to two different art forms has important consequences from an art and literary historical point of view and for their position in the market as well. How can one make sense of the conviction that these two works are as different as oil and water? This paper aims to answer this question by describing how the context of presentation influences the way works are perceived, categorized, and enter the canon and the marketplace.