Carl Andre on Materiality, Music, and the Child's Gaze

In an interview published in artpress (February 2002), Carl Andre discusses his participation in the exhibition 'Can (Carl, Alan, Niele)' at the Centre d'art contemporain in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (November 18, 2001 – January 20, 2002). The show, organized by Olivier Mosset, also featured Alan Charlton and Niele Toroni. Interviewer Gauthier Huber prompted Andre to reflect on music, materiality, and the reception of his work. Andre dismissed interest in signs or messages, focusing instead on 'modes of being in the material world.' He rejected spirituality as 'mental obesity' but acknowledged J.S. Bach as the greatest artist of Western civilization, noting that Bach's adoration of God was expressed through material means. Andre described his works as strictly material and subject to constant change, with no ideal state of preservation. He criticized art critics for drowning art in the ocean of language, destroying the physical object. On audience interaction, he observed that children consistently react with joy and surprise, while English-speaking adults ask 'What does it mean?'—a question he interprets as a linguistic construction in the face of physical presence. He called all art erotic and admitted he works only for his own pleasure, a flaw that made his mother cry. Andre praised the exhibition as the closest he has come to a perfect installation.