Fred Sandback: Lines Shaping Space

Untitled (Sculptural Study, Three-part Wall Construction), ca. 1986-87/2012; red, blue, and yellow acrylic yarn; Situational: spatial relationships established by the artist, overall dimensions vary with each installation.

When I walked into the Fred Sandback exhibition at David Zwirner last week, I had a physical sensation of release and expansion. The three simple lines of yarn on a wall facing the entrance announced, in a modest manner, a quiet approach to what is essential about visual relationships. I had just come downtown from MoMA and the Whitney, and the contrast couldn't have been more stark. From hip and crowded and new and loud, to this minimalist exploration of space through line. 

 Untitled (Sculptural Study, Twelve-Part Vertical Construction), ca. 1987/2012; black, blue, and yellow acrylic yarn; Situational: spatial relationships established by the artist; overall dimensions vary with each installation.

Sandback's work, although it can be large-room sized, is so reserved in expression, so almost-not-there, that it is an antidote to the giantism of some contemporary art. What can be less grandiose than ordinary yarn? In this Twelve-Part construction, three different colors of yarn stretch from floor to ceiling; as you walk around it, the pattern of the colors and their relationships become clear: 

 another view of Twelve-Part Vertical Construction.

what had seemed at first to be a random arrangement of lines is in this view ordered and rational, with four yellow lines at right angles to four blue ones, with doubled black lines adding a different kind of rhythm.  

Untitled, (Sculptural Study, Four-part Mikado Construction), ca. 1991/2011; aqua acrylic yarn; Situational: spatial relationships established by the artist, overall dimensions vary with each installation.

This piece stretched through the space of the largest room in the gallery, making me aware of the energy of empty space: up, down, back and front, the lines moved like delicate spider threads flung from one anchoring place to another.

detail, Four-part Mikado Construction.

In this piece, one of the lines was made heavier by tripling the yarn; in others it is doubled, or left just as one strand.

16 Variations of 2 Diagonal Lines, 1972; yellow acrylic yarn; Situational: spatial relationships established by the artist, overall dimensions vary with each installation.

This work consisted of two rooms with a yellow diagonal line in each. This shot of the smaller of the two rooms shows the Four Part Mikado Construction through the doorway. From these inadequate photos it is hard to imagine how exciting it is to see a space completely transformed by a yellow line running through it; it is art that must be physically experienced. I also find it hard to describe why this work moves me so strongly; it is not just its formal qualities, though those are very satisfying. I think it is partly that the ambitious aims are achieved by such ordinary stuff: the vulnerability of the yarn and its self-effacing quality are very touching. So much with so little.