1. Fred Sandback tutorial Fred Sandback
Born 1943 Bronxville, NY (died 2013)
Known for sculptures that outlined planes and volumes in space using a minimum of material
Early career: used metal wire and elastic cord
Soon dispensed with mass and weight by using acrylic yarn
Addressed the physical surroundings, the “pedestrian space” of everyday life
By stretching lengths of yarn horizontally, vertically, or diagonally at different scales and in varied configurations, the artist developed a singular body of work
Elaborated on the phenomenological experience of space and volume with unwavering consistency and ingenuity

2. Background:
Exhibited internationally since the late 1960s
1968: His first solo shows were held at Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, and Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich
While a graduate student pursuing his MFA at the Yale School of Art and Architecture
Perceptual Effects:
Uses the simplest of means to create subtly complex perceptual effects
His most characteristic works were composed of store-bought acrylic yarns in various colors
Stretches between different points on the walls, ceilings and floors of exhibition spaces
What:
In response to the architecture of a particular interior
Floor-to-ceiling verticals or closed forms like parallelograms, rhombuses or triangles
Early work: the space is enclosed and the reference is clearly to an object (see above)
Fred Sandback, Untitled (no. 48, Three Leaning Planes, from 133 Proposals for the Heiner Friedrich Gallery), 1969 Black acrylic yarn Dimensions vary with each installation

3. Compared the use of yarn to a number-two pencil line
A simple, mundane material
Before that, his sculptures were made of elastic cord
The problem with the elastic cord is that it always wants to sag, and yarn doesn’t
Often made sketches of work prior to installation
Considered all of his yarn pieces to be 3-D!!
Sandback, Untitled, 1975 Pencil and blue crayon on paper 9 x 11 3/4 inches
Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Low-relief Wall Construction), 1975/2008 Blue acrylic yarn, dimensions vary with each installation

4. Sandback, Untitled (Two-part Vertical Construction), 1976
Also a writer
Wrote statements pertaining to his work
“My three-dimensional pieces are physically unstable—some exist for a day or so and then are finished. That’s the right scale for me. A piece can always be remade.” (emphasis mine)
Color:
You can’t avoid color
He sometimes painted the yarn, but used mostly off-the-shelf colors 
Sandback, Untitled (Two-part Vertical Construction), 1976
Venetian red acrylic yarn
Ceiling height x 12 x 18 inches
Ceiling height x 30.5 x 45.7 cm

5. Dimensions vary with each installation
Like a LeWitt wall drawing, these can be reinstalled
There are directions – the curator can’t do whatever they want
In some cases with the repeating modules the reference to Judd’s progressions was certainly very clear
Minimalism:
Judd’s work was immensely attractive to FS and his fellow students
Minimalism was “in the air”
1960s, Judd working with small objects
FS gradually drifted away from that kind of object-related format
Did not consider himself to be an installation artist – these are sculpture
Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Six-part Construction), ca. 1977/2008
Black acrylic yarn
Dimensions vary with each installation

6. 1977 Statement  “A sculpture made with just a few lines may seem very purist or geometrical at first. My work isn’t either of these things. My lines aren’t distillations or refinements of anything. They are simple facts, issues of my activity that don’t represent anything beyond themselves. My pieces are offered as concrete, literal situations, and not as indications of any other sort or order.  Lately much of my work has been executed in and for a specific place. It’s always been conceived with at least a generalized sort of place in mind, but these pieces are now bound to one site. This doesn’t mean that a piece can’t be redone in a different location, but just that it will be a completely different situation when it is. Of course there are things I’m interested in doing that I don’t have a place for, but because of that they remain necessarily vague and indeterminate.  Most of these larger pieces have a rather limited lifespan—existing for a week or a month and then to a large extent disappearing permanently. It’s not that I place any value on their transience—quite the contrary. It’s just that that’s part of the scale of the whole endeavor.  A consequence of the inclusivity or complexity that I desire is that there is a good deal of decision making for me about my control over a piece—deciding the limits beyond which my specific intentions can no longer have an influence. This might seem vague or incomplete, though of course I don’t find it so, and I’m certainly not interested in any formalized notion of “indeterminacy.” It’s simply a matter of penetration—making the situation as dense and complex as possible without faking anything.” This text was first published in English and Flemish in Plan & Space, exh. cat. (Gent: Koninklijke Academie, 1977).
Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Two-part Vertical Construction), ca. 1986/2008 Black acrylic yarn Dimensions vary with each installation

7. 1/8” diameter orange elastic cord
Some seem to be planes leaning against a support
Note the possible connection to Motherwell’s Open series
What of the color? How does this vibrant red affect your perception of the piece
Sandback, Untitled, 1973
1/8” diameter orange elastic cord
Dimensions variable with each installation
Installed at MAMFW; on loan

8. 1999 Statement “Over the years I have preferred the title “sculptor
1999 Statement  “Over the years I have preferred the title “sculptor.” I like the groundedness of it, referring back to my early love for the sculpture of Michelangelo, Rodin, and Henry Moore, for example. Early on, though, I left the model of such discrete sculptural volumes for a sculpture which became less of a thing-in-itself, more of a diffuse interface between myself, my environment, and others peopling that environment, built of thin lines that left enough room to move through and around. Still sculpture, though less dense, with an ambivalence between exterior and interior. A drawing that is habitable. (emphasis mine)
The above remarks indicate only the “stage,” of course, the general shape of the medium I have chosen, not to be confused with that which is expressed therewith or therein. This content, because of its nature resists verbal explication. Whatever philosophical, historical, or literary artillery I bring to the workplace, it is of no assistance in the art of trying to stretch a line between two points. In that I am alone and voiceless.” This text was written in November 1998 and first published inHere and Now: Fred Sandback, (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 1999).
Sandback, Untitled (Triangular Construction), 1989 Chrome yellow and white acrylic yarn Dimensions vary with each installation

9. Sandback, Untitled (Ten-part Vertical Construction), 1991
When asked about the limitations of the medium he’s chosen, he alluded to the potential for weaving the thread
His studio, in New Hampshire, was once raided by mice
One winter, every time he took an armload of wood, he would find a colorful nest of thread in the woodpile!
This was inspiration to him…
“There was a Bauhaus mouse and there was a Miami mouse, and I got a real kick out of that. My color means more to me than I think it meant to the mouse, but I appreciated theirs.” 
This never came to fruition in his work
It would have changed it dramatically!
Sandback, Untitled (Ten-part Vertical Construction), 1991
Black, white, tan and blue acrylic yarn
Dimensions vary with each installation

10. Installed at MAMFW; on loan
We have purchased two new Sandbacks, which are currently installed in Gallery 6
This piece relates to the architecture of the building
Resembles an architectural drawing of an planned building
How does the piece converse with the space it inhabits? For example, do you notice the patterns of the floor and ceiling more now? Does moving through he space change for you? How?
A few connections:
Note the placement of ____ near the Judds; how does the module-like quality of the Sandback relate to Judd’s use of a series of identical components that make a whole?
How does Sandback’s use of colored yarn relate to LeWitt’s use of colored pencil?
Could you look at ______ in relation to Motherwell’s Opens? How does the drawn line function differently from the “yarned” line? How do you find them to be similar?
Note how important perception is to both Sandbacks and the Irwin. This would make a nice talking point on your tours.
Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Two-part Standing Construction), ca. 1978/2007 Black acrylic yarn Dimensions vary with each installation
Installed at MAMFW; on loan