Fred Sandback ─ Vertical Constructions

Fred Sandback (1943–2003) was an American artist known for sculptures that outlined planes and volumes in space. Though he employed metal wire and elastic cord early in his career, the artist soon dispensed with mass and weight by using acrylic yarn to create works that address their physical surroundings, the “pedestrian space,” as Sandback called it, 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 that elaborated on the phenomenological experience of space and volume with unwavering consistency and ingenuity.

Yve-Alain Bois is a professor of art history at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Bois has written widely on modern and contemporary art, and his 2005 essay on Sandback’s work has remained one of the most influential pieces of scholarship on the artist to date.

Lisa Le Feuvre is head of sculpture studies at the Henry Moore Foundation. Le Feuvre has taught at numerous academic organizations, including Chelsea College of Art, Goldsmiths, Royal College of Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, and Stadelschule, among many others.

David Gray is an editor and art historian. He is presently a board member at the Fred Sandbank Archive; project director, Robert Ryman Catalogue Raisonne; and executive director, The Greenwich Collection, Ltd., a nonprofit foundation. He has contributed to catalogues raisonnes for John Cage, Dan Flavin, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.