Carl Andre awarded 2011 Roswitha-Haftmann Foundation Prize

CARL ANDRE RECEIVES 2011 ROSWITHA HAFTMANN FOUNDATION PRIZE

NEW YORK – The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce that Carl Andre has received Switzerland's 2011 Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Prize. The prize, which, at 150,000 Swiss francs, is Europe's highest award for art, was established in 2001 and is given every one to three years to a living artist.

Since the 1960s, Carl Andre has redefined the field of sculpture by rejecting anthropomorphism and refusing to alter or rework his materials in any way. Instead, Andre arranges discrete units of matter directly on the ground. By drawing attention to mass, volume, space and gravity, Andre creates artworks that can be encountered and experienced physically.

Andre’s work was included in two seminal exhibitions that helped to define the art movements of the 1960s, specifically conceptual art and minimal art: Kynaston McShine’s and Lucy Lippard’s Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum (1966), and Harald Szeeman's Live in your head: when attitudes become form at the Kunsthalle Bern (1969).

Andre’s work has been the subject of several retrospectives, most notably at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1970; the Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, in 1978; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in 1978; the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, in 1987; the Haus Lange und Haus Esters, Krefeld and the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, in 1996; and the Musée Cantini, Marseilles, in 1997.

Opening on October 8, 2010, the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, will present Carl Andre, an exhibition of sculpture including new work and a selection of pieces from the late 1960s. Finally, DIA: Beacon will organize the first North American retrospective of Carl Andre’s work, scheduled to open in May 2013.

The official award ceremony for the Roswitha-Haftmann Prize will take place in the spring of 2011 at the Kunsthaus Zurich.

For more information, please contact the gallery at (212) 255-1105; info@paulacoopergallery.com

To visit the Roswitha-Haftmann website, please visit: www.roswithahatmann-foundation.com