Carl Andre

Carl Andre laid out 97 flat, square steel plates in a line on a hill near Aasee. As a strip running along the ground that visually mediates between the adjoining woods and the sheet of water, the line could also be walked on by visitors. The imagined trajectory of this line would have extended across the shore and the lake into the centre of Münster.

For his ground sculptures Andre always uses pre-formed industrial materials such as metal, stone or wood. He does not perform artistic interventions on the material itself but through serial arrangements in space. The reduced appearance of his works is tied to complex notions of site and space. Thus the title of the path of steel plates pays homage to the zoology professor Hermann Landois, who founded Münster zoo in 1874. Later, Landois campaigned for the founding of the Natural History Museum and championed the impounding of the river Aa, a tributary of the Ems. The site Andre chose for the installation alluded to these events. On the one hand his work indicated the grounds of Münster’s new Allwetterzoo located next to the hill; on the other, it related to the Aasee as Landois’ dream project as well as to the site of the former zoo on the other side of the lake.

Daniel Friedt