(ANDRE, Carl).

Exhibition card: Ontologische Plastik bei Konrad Fischer (21 October-28 November 1967).

Exhibition details, diagram illus. & artist biography & exhibition list. [4] pp. Folding card. Düsseldorf: Konrad Fischer, 1967.

The extremely scarce card announcing Konrad Fischer’s very first exhibition, the presentation of a site-specific sculpture by Andre (b. 1935). The gallerist simply sent Andre a plane ticket and the sculpture was fabricated on sight with locally sourced materials. Inside the card is a diagram of Andre’s resulting work, 5 x 20 Altstadt Rectangle. WorldCat records a single example of this folding card, at the Museo Reina Sofía.

“It all began with Carl Andre. He was the first artist to be exhibited at Konrad Fischer’s gallery…When Fischer sent the American artist a plane ticket in 1967 he did not know him personally and had never seen any of his original works. Reproductions in international art magazines were enough for him, accompanied by enthusiastic accounts about Andre from his friend, the curator Kasper König, who was living in New York…Andre lay one hundred industrial steel plates, measuring 0.5 x 50 x 50 centimeters each, on the floor of the gallery at Neubrückstrasse 12. Their overall size of 250 x 1000 centimeters corresponded with the room’s dimensions, which was about 3 meters wide and 11 meters long. The artist also exhibited a drawing that showed additional possible combinations of the same number of metal plates (5 Sculptures, 1967). The exhibition titled Ontologische Plastik (Ontological Sculpture) was Andre’s first in Europe. The floor sculpture, which was called 5 x 20 Altstadt Rectangle, became legendary.”–Cloud & Crystal: The Dorothee and Konrad Fischer Collection (2016 exhib. booklet), p. 14.

Fischer eventually sold 5 x 20 Altstadt Rectangle to Giuseppe Panza di Biumo in 1974, as recorded in Sophie Richard’s Unconcealed. The work is now part of the Guggenheim collection (accession no. 91.3667).

In excellent condition. The artist’s name is written with marker in the corner of the first page.

❧ D. Fischer, ed., Ausstellungen bei Konrad Fischer: Düsseldorf Oktober 1967-Oktober 1992 (Edition Marzona: 1993) 1.

This exhibition is depicted on the front cover and p. 95 of Brigitte Kölle, okey dokey Konrad Fischer (2007).

Sophie Richard, Unconcealed: The International Network of Conceptual Artists 1967-77, Dealers, Exhibitions and Public Collections (2010), p. 318.