Fred Sandback

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of sculptures, constructions, and works on paper by American artist Fred Sandback (1943-2003). This is the fifth solo exhibition of work by Fred Sandback at the gallery.

The sculptures employ acrylic yarn, often in multiple color combinations, to draw planes and shapes in space, connecting points on the gallery walls and floor. The use of color in his sculptures is not painterly, but serves instead to define linear structures. Sandback uses color as “a way of balancing the relationships that various pieces have as they coexist with each other.” There is nothing mathematical or deductive in the artist’s thinking. As Sandback explains, “there isn’t an idea which transcends the actuality of the pieces. The actuality is the idea.” This statement is a focal point in philosopher John Rajchman’s recent essay “Fred Sandback’s Lines of Thought” in which Rajchman discusses Sandback’s work in relation to Kantian ideas of external space. Rajchman focuses on the ability of Sandback’s constructions to transform a space that invites one to think without asserting any particular idea.

The work of Fred Sandback has been exhibited internationally since the mid-1960s. His first one-person exhibitions were at the Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, and the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, both in 1968. In 2003, large scale sculptures were permanently installed at Dia Beacon, Beacon, New York. His work is represented in numerous public collections including the Musée National Pompidou d’Arte Moderne, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Pinakothek der Modern, Munich, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Fred Sandback