1977 Carl Andre 4 "Aluminum Square" Sculpture
GUEST: Christmas of 1978. My mother and dad decided that instead of giving us a bunch of stuff that wouldn't last, they would give us some art. And so, these four squares are a sculpture from Carl Andre. And of course, when they gave them to me, I had no idea who Carl Andre was. (chuckles) I took them back to college with me. I took them to graduate school after that. When I tried to explain it to, to my fraternity brothers or friends, they said, "they look like drink coasters to me," (chuckling): and they have been used... as-- as drink coasters. Came back, moved back to Savannah, got married, had four children, and I sort of forgot about it. And then, last year, I read in The New York Times that he, that he died, and so I remembered that I had them.
APPRAISER: So, they are by Carl Andre. He was the leading minimalist artist.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And we're showing them this way, but, let's show the way it's really supposed to look.
GUEST: I have the receipt, but I don't have it with me. The picture with the receipt has a picture of it arranged like that. So, I've assumed that that's the way it was meant to be.
APPRAISER: His work is meant to be flat on the ground.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And the larger works can be ten, 15-feet square. He felt that people should be able to walk on them.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: This Minimalist movement, it was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, and the idea was to reduce art to the most simple, basic forms. He was very prominent. He had exhibitions in major museums-- the Guggenheim, the Tate. He's quite controversial in his personal life.
GUEST: I read a little bit about that in the...
APPRAISER: You read about it.
GUEST: ...in the, in the "Times" obituary.
APPRAISER: Right. Carl's wife was Ana Mendieta, and she was a very prominent Cuban artist. She was well known for her "earth-body" series. His wife died, and he was tried for secondary murder. And, uh, he was acquitted. But many, many people in the art world felt that he was guilty. And-and as a result, every time he showed after that-- this was in the 1980s-- there'd be huge protests saying that...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...he really was guilty. He went off to Europe, he-he stopped showing, and his career was really in decline. Do you know who your father bought it from?
GUEST: After I got more interested in it, I found out that the art director had introduced him to a friend of his, Angela Westwater, in-in New York.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. And she was a very prominent art dealer at that time.
GUEST: Right, right.
APPRAISER: So, uh, it has that really great provenance. And I understand you have some, you have all the materials...
GUEST: I-I do-- we-we do. And-and I can't remember how much he might have paid for 'em. If I had to guess, I'd probably say maybe $2,000 or $3,000.
APPRAISER: Mm, yeah. His work is very desirable, very, very collectible. I think an insurance valuation would be in the $10,000 range.
GUEST: Probably shouldn't use them as drink coasters anymore. (laughs)
APPRAISER: Unless it's a really fine wine.
GUEST: (laughs)
$10,000 Retail
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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