M HKA Ensembles

Book, 22.8 x 15 cm, 31 p, language: English, publisher: Tracks: A Journal of Artists' Writings. Chapters I-IV. In: Tracks 2:2, 1976. Chapters V-XI. In: Tracks 2:3, 1976. Chapters XII-XVI In: Tracks 3:1 and 2, 1977.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp.

Literary synopsis

"Carl Andre’s cycle of writings Billy Builder, or the Painfull Machine: A Novel of Velocity stalk Andre’s interest in the stricture of material and have a lightness of interpretative touch that lifts his text into symbol. ''On the following Sunday, unbeknownst to Billy Builder, Mother Builder and Mundane Carpenter, Garson Fanshot, son of the Fanshot millions, returned to Onus Falls from his student days at Old Farmer’s Preparatory School. Wishing to surprise his best summer friend, Garson went immediately to the modest Builder Cottage and slipped into Billy’s basement laboratory through a little-used passage in the root cellar. Garson moved silently toward the laboratory, but the sight of Mundane Carpenter and Billy Builder leaning together over the Periodic Table caused him to emit a nearly audible gasp.'' You get the sense in this opening passage that Andre enjoyed (and was rather good at) the process of writing; his playful placement of character and object are used to encourage the reader to make their own narrative with phrases such as ‘the Periodic Table’ taking the part of two nouns at once. Although published serially, when read together Billy the Builder moves beyond the apologue into a novel-like discourse, there is a distinct leakage of Andre’s practice as text becomes form and yet also discusses it."

- Maria Fusco, ‘How Hard It Is To Die’, Metropolis M, no. 2, 2010.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Billy Builder, or the Painfull Machine: A Novel of Velocity is a novel published in three consecutive issues of the periodical Tracks: A Journal of Artists' Writings (1976-1977).

Novel's website