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Carl Andre’s “Stone Field Sculpture”

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36 Rocks Sitting on the Triangularish Lawn on Gold Street Near Main
“Stone Field” Sculpture, Hartford
Many Visits

2015 Update: Construction on Gold Street prompted utilities worker to spraypaint the rocks. Guess they didn’t think/realize this was an art installation. Which is kind of funny.

stone1.jpgArt. It means different things to different people. Hartford has a rather, um, unique installation right next to the historic “Ancient Burying Grounds” cemetery and across the street from the Wadsworth Atheneum; 36 rocks sitting on the triangularish lawn on Gold Street near Main.

What makes this field of stones interesting enough for me to take a picture of it and write about it is the massive public outcry that greeted its unveiling. Hartford denizens and writers still talk about it; marking anniversaries with biting editorials and sarcastic blurbs.

Carl Andre was (and is) an “important” artist and sculptor. So Hartford apparently had $87,000 to throw around back in 1977 and decided to commission him for an installation. He accepted and Hartford got… Yup, 36 rocks sitting on the triangularish lawn on Gold Street near Main.

The BBC seems to be enamored with Mr. Andre… “Andre’s sculptures tend to involve simple elements – bricks, for example, or stones – arranged simply and without any subjective content… Andre’s sculptures tend to hug the ground, an unusual quality in sculpture. They also tend to excite unfavourable comment; abstract art usually does that.

Stone Field Sculpture, which was created in 1977, consists of eight rows of boulders in a triangular shape, so that the first row contains one large boulder, and the eighth row eight smaller boulders. The stones are of local rock, and were chosen so that their composition reflects the makeup of rock in the area. For example, there is the same proportion of basalt to gneiss (metamorphic rock) in the sculpture as there is in the Hartford area. The rows of stone are reminiscent of tombstones, a comparison made clear because Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground is adjacent to the sculpture.

stones.jpg

As a major work by an important artist, you would expect Stone Field Sculpture to hold an honoured place in Hartford, but you’d be wrong. The conservative ethic runs deep there, and the work is regarded as something of an embarrassment by many who should know better. Life is like that sometimes – show beauty and meaning in certain ways and it will be missed. If it means you must sit and enjoy it in solitude, the better for you and the worse for them.”

The city even tried to get out of their contract with Andre and not pay him a dime. (This was mostly driven by the popular outcry over the installation.) But once lawyers got involved, the city paid up and there it sits; 36 rocks sitting on the triangularish lawn on Gold Street near Main.

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  1. hello,
    i am a student at oregon state university and i am in a intro to visual arts class. for extra credit we had to write a response on carl andre’s stone field sculpture. our response had to do with a statement that had to do with, “i don’t think the stone field sculptre is art at all.”
    i responced and said that it was art. either it’s art or andre was just messing with people. (also a big fan of messing with people.
    i like the sculpure very well.

  2. Hi! -^.^-

    I had to do a debate paper for my Art History class at Southwest VA Community College either defending or attacking Carl Andre’s “Stone Field Sculpture,” and I just wanted to thank you for the informative information, and to let you know that it helped in writing my essay.

    For the record I chose to attack his sculpture; my reasoning was that even though his artwork is essentially his own vision, in this case it was a *commission,* and therefore partly someone else’s vision too, since they were paying for it. The client was obviously very unsatisfied with the final result, so much so that they tried to get out of paying Mr. Andre, which I believe they were within their rights to do so. He obviously held his own “creative vision” above what Hartford wanted, and since it was their lawn and their money, I don’t believe that was right.

    Thank you for writing! You were very helpful.

  3. As one who lived in the greater Hartford area when the Famous Artist was hired, I remember thinking that Hartford and Connecticut taxpayers got bilked. To this day I am not sure whether we ought to be angry with the artist or the people who hired him. As one letter writer points out, it is art. Presumably the committee that hired Andre had seen some of his other work; presumably they felt his style of work would be suitable. But I would also think that as a commission piece–while not architecture where plans would be shown prior to building– there would have been some discussion of what the work would consist of. Nobody was happy, including the committee, when this was done. However I am unsure when the committee decided they were unhappy–before or after the citizens pointed out that it was rather an Emperor’s new clothes situation.

    I also take exception with the BBC’s dismissal of critics of this piece, saying of Andre’s works “…They also tend to excite unfavourable comment; abstract art usually does that.” In fact, Hartford via the Wadsworth Atheneum, has a long history of embracing abstract art. Jackson Pollack, Salvidor Dali, and many other artists found a warm reception here.

    But perhaps, as I suspect, the committee knew what they were getting–or were likely to get–in which case the attempt to not pay Andre is rather like the citizens of Hamlin not wishing to pay a certain piper for ridding them of rats.

  4. I live in CT and just stumbled upon this article about a “stone field sculpture” today. (I was researching Holy Land in Waterbury) You really peaked my curiosity! I want to state that Carl Andre’s piece looks beautiful, the ideas behind it are marvelous and I now plan on visiting. I never heard of this artist or controversy before but now I have to research both. It seems that the committee couldn’t prove that they were buying more than rocks. It can be hard to please everybody, but this really inspires me. Thank you for your blog it looks very interesting.. I read a few of the tree ones already. I bookmarked you and now and plan to read and visit more of CT. Thank you! zaRK new haven CT

  5. I am a West Hartford,Ct resident spending time in Paris where I saw another of Andre’s sculptures in the Tuilleries yesterday. An art student described the artist and the work and was shocked by my recount of Ct’s reaction to “stone field sculpture”. Seeing this sculpture,in the shadow of the Louvre, may have colored my reaction, but I am in awe of his work.

  6. Often you find children playing upon the rocks or people just leaning or sitting on them. As to the question of whether it is art….it is. Just not very good art. I still enjoy walking amongst it.

  7. Art is not something that makes sense or is pleasing to all. It peaks interest and generates converstaion. How many times have you heard that the Campbell’s Soup Cans, by Andy Warhol, aren’t art. How about Jackson Pollock? Art is art and we don’t have enough of it in Hartford to dismantle or rearrange what we do have.

  8. Hartford didn’t get “bilked”. The money came from the NEA and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

  9. Honestly I think it was a waste of $87,000. Art can be a variety of things but when it has no meaning behind it why should it be considered art??? I’m a student at the local community college and was assigned to have a debate on the “Stone Field Sculpture” and I have to represent that it is art but I strongly believe that this isn’t art.

  10. What a joke. This is ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ in reality. If this was to be dumped on YOUR 2 acre lawn, would you accept and pay for it as a ‘Sculpture’? Hartford was taken by a con man, and he laughed all the way to the bank. Only pretentious idiots defend this lunacy and theft of public money as art.

  11. Who are you, Friends of Stone Field, and how can I contact you? I am researching the history of this work.

  13. Not very good art, con game, embarrassment, worthy of dismantling/moving.
    Anyone who is defining or deriding the sculpture without having: touched, walked within, been with the installation for at least 15 minutes, is no more than a wannabe censor who hasn’t read the book.

    As someone who has done all of the above for 25 years running, I say: thank you Chance and Action and Serendipity and Inertia and Passion for Stone Field Sculpture.

  14. Only artists who like to hide behind their forced, contrived pseudo-intellectual psychobabble believe it is “art.”

    You could have given a construction company $10K, and they could have delivered the same “art.”

    It is astounding how people try to create meaning where there isn’t any. This loser “artist” was probably laughing the entire time that someone payed him $87K for that garbage!

  15. I’d say it is because this article puts into obvious terms, the problem with aesthetics and art.

  16. It costs just about $10,000 to insure one artist/contractor to perform a job that requires such difficulty. I feel to many people are un educated on the facts and history to see and understand why this sculpture is rare and is a form of art, earth art or abstract, or conceptional it is a form of art, many people have no idea how much time artist put into a project, sometimes years, I do event photography and it takes 20-30 hours just to prepare for the event,…

  17. It’s funny…as a lifelong area resident and someone who used to walk past Stone Field twice a day for several years while working nearby, I always just thought of it as “that rock garden” or “that bunch of rocks.” It seemed about as creative to me as that guy who painted a solid blue canvas that was featured in a special exhibition at the Wadsworth because it was so genius. It was a plain canvas. It’s a bunch of rocks.

    But when the iQuilt plan was first announced and the city said they were getting rid of Stone Field, I — and this is no exaggeration — nearly cried. You can’t take away Stone Field! It’s our bunch of rocks, dammit! There is something oddly comforting about it being there. On those twice-a-day walks, it was the thing that stood out, even with a gorgeous park and architecture around me. Even though it made me roll my eyes sometimes, it made me react somehow and feel something. I can’t say that many other things give me some kind of emotional response just walking past them.

    I was basically ready to fling myself into the field with some sort of warrior implements to protect the stones should the city go ahead with it. Thankfully, it turns out there are lots of other people who feel like me — we may not necessarily like it every day (or ever…I mean, seriously, it’s a bunch of rocks, let’s be real here), but it speaks to us and we don’t want to silence its voice. And I would say that makes it 100% art. It is serving the purpose of art. It engages us and makes us talk and I love it for that.

    Sometimes it reminds me of my colonial ancestors in town buried nearby; sometimes it reminds me of green spaces being preserved amongst skyscrapers; sometimes I think of the unknown slaves and Native peoples we walk on every day in cities; sometimes the pattern is just hypnotic and weirdly calming. In contrast, the Calder stegasaurus everyone brags about us having? It’s neat to look at, but I feel nothing.

    If anyone tries to take away Stone Field again, I will pick up a 37th boulder and chuck it at them. Leave that dumb, pointless, overpriced, absolutely essential piece of true art alone. To (perhaps slightly mis)quote something I read once: “Even bad art is still art, and therefore sacred.”

  18. I’d have to say that Hartford must have gotten their money’s worth. After all, we’re stile talking about this controversial sculpture today.

    I was taking art classes at UConn way back in the day, and I new that conservative Hartford Connecticut, my home town, would go nuts as soon as the Courant ran a story on Carl Andre and the “$87,000 pile of rocks”.

    Many of the harsh critics never went to see what the brouhaha was about and form an honest opinion. Minimalism is hard for many people to wrap their brain around especially if all they grew up worth are pretty realistic paintings of the master and sculpture by Leonardo.

    Hey, it’s fun and still stirring up controversy.

  19. As a piece of sculpture, the Stone Field is a unimaginative effort. The artist simply moved natural objects from one place to another. If we put a line of chairs in a museum gallery it would have the same effect. It begs to be ignored. It neither, elevates, inspires or disrupts, it elicits virtually no emotional or intellectual response.

    If I was so inclined, I could come up with some pseudo intellectual defense of the Stone Field. Perhaps something about the linear form contrasting natural objects or its juxtaposition to the surrounding urban environment. Unfortunately, I could do the same with a tree or stream, it exists independent of this piece.

    I wouldn’t replace the piece. It reminds me of a rock garden in my aunt’s backyard. Any green space in a city is appreciated. But that doesn’t make it an important or even mediocre piece of art.

  20. After going to the Wadsworth for the first time, I went across the street to the “Stone Field Sculpture” and ate lunch on one of the rocks with my step father. It’s one of my favorite memories. The installation only makes sense when people sit on the rocks. Just like gravestones being markers for the dead, the rocks in this brilliant art piece are meant to exhault the living. If you have ever had a picnic with your Dad on one of these rocks, you’d get it.

  21. Brilliant sculpture that puts the blame on a horrible accident that happen in Hartfords heyday. 36 stones represent the 36 fire extinguishers missing at the time of Hartford circus fire, which occurred on July 6, 1944. 167 Plus deaths. This was never made public and Andre would not confirm when I asked him. I was researching another story and link these two items together.

  22. Speaking of horrible deaths , I’m surprised no one has mentioned artist Ana Mendieta, wife of Carl Andre, the creator of the Stone Field Sculpture. In 1977 at 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, Andre pushed his wife out the window of their apartment on Mercer St. in NYC. She fell 37 floors to her death. Prior to being pushed someone in the street heard her screaming through their open window (No! No! No!) before she fell to her death. The impact of her fall sounded like an explosion, said one witness (a night watchman). Her fall dented the roof of a one story building she landed on. Iy was adjacent to the very tall building in which they lived. Everyone in the art world knew he caused her death. For that reason alone that sculpture should be removed. (read “Naked by the Window” by Robert Katz for all of the facts).

  23. https://hyperallergic.com/538535/actress-ellen-barkin-reveals-she-was-assaulted-by-carl-andre-in-the-late-70s/

    As a supplement to my above comment, please copy and paste the above link. Carl Andre actually choked actress Ellen Barkin while in a restaurant that he was dining at. She had the misfortune of being his waitress when she was just starting out and somehow triggered his homicidal instinct.

    The man was a monster and a freak. I wish Carl Andre was still alive to read this but (un)fortunately he died on January 24th of this year.

    Come on, Hartford. Those stupid boulders have got to go!

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