Fred Sandback

Dia Art Foundation

Using subtle methods and an economy of materials, Fred Sandback’s work creates striking perceptual effects in response to the surrounding architecture. Using store-bought spools of colored yarn, Sandback's constructions trace the space between different points on floors, ceilings, and walls, creating shapes and constructing the illusion of a pane of glass or shimmering lines of color.

In these sculptures, space is both defined and incorporeal. Often the spectator concentrates less on the edges demarcated by the yarn than on the planar or volumetric components contained within them. Whether transparent geometries or simple linear trajectories, Sandback’s sculptures inhabit the space occupied by the spectator—what the artist dubbed “pedestrian space”—as opposed to an environment constructed for display. Conceived to coexist with the architecture that hosts them, the sculptures reveal themselves over time from various vantages and according to different perspectives.

Excerpted from Fred Sandback, December 10, 2021–March 31, 2025, Dia Beacon; Exhibition Information.