Fred Sandback Prints 1970 – 2000 by Sims Reed

FRED SANDBACK PRINTS

Exhibition: 13th October â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 11th November 2015 Sims Reed Gallery 30 Bury Street London SW1Y 6AU T +44 (0)20 7930 5111 E gallery@simsreed.com www.gallery.simsreed.com

In collaboration with Diane Villani Editions, NYC and the Fred Sandback Estate.

FRED SANDBACK PRINTS 1970–2000

FOREWORD Lyndsey Ingram We are delighted to be exhibiting this comprehensive survey of prints by the American artist Fred Sandback. Known primarily for his minimal, acrylic yarn sculptures, Sandback also made graphic work throughout his career. It is a privilege to be able to show this extensive group of his prints, as well as two editioned sculptures, and to bring this material to London, where Sandback’s work has rarely been seen. Sandback was born in 1943 in Bronxville, New York. He studied philosophy at Yale University and went on to attend the Yale School of Art, where he met Donald Judd and Robert Morris, both visiting professors at the time. He later moved to New York City, where he lived and worked until his death in 2003. Sandback had his first solo exhibition in 1968, at Konrad Fischer in Dusseldorf, and his second show later that year at Heiner Friedrich in Munich. It was during this time that he first considered making prints. Although initially unfamiliar with printmaking, Sandback made his first print in 1970, a simple screenprint in two colours on yellow paper, and other similar works followed. After these early screenprints, Sandback soon began to engage with other print techniques. Over the next decade he moved swiftly from screenprint to lithography, linoleum cut, etching, and a technique he called ‘reverse lithography’. We are very pleased to have examples of all of these techniques in this exhibition, as well as others that Sandback developed later in his career including photostat printing and monoprint. Sandback learned all of the print techniques himself and worked closely with his printers. His close association with the process is felt in the small editions and intimate character of his prints. Although the nature of the mediums is very different, there is a constant parallel that runs between Sandback’s print work and his sculpture. In the earliest prints, Sandback not only draws the lines of the sculpture itself, but the spaces that it will inhabit. As his prints develop, the articulated physical space falls away and we are left with only the lines themselves. The paper becomes the space to be inhabited and focus is shifted entirely to the character of the line. Like his sculpture, the prints are elegant and restrained, with the simple beauty one sees in all of Sandback’s work. We are very grateful to Amy Baker Sandback and the Fred Sandback Estate, who supplied the majority of the works in this exhibition and with whom we have worked closely. Also, this show would not have been possible without the help of Diane Villani and David Gray, whose insights, assistance, and constant support have been invaluable.

THEORY OF INVISIBILITY: FRED SANDBACK’S PRINTS Nancy Princenthal “No ideas but in things,” proclaimed William Carlos Williams. And likewise Fred Sandback: “There isn’t an idea which transcends the actuality of the pieces,” he wrote in 1973. “The actuality is the idea.”1 The lines of elastic cord and acrylic yarn that are strung from walls and ceilings to floors in his sculptures are not exercises in Platonic idealism, or in late 1960s Conceptualism. They are facts on the ground. Just as Sandback stressed the matter-of-fact quality of the space his sculptures constructed, calling it “pedestrian” and “habitable,” he also insisted, “A line of string isn’t a line, it’s a thing.”2 But what of his prints and drawings? It can be said that sculptural space is necessarily experienced physically, while the same is not true of pictorial art. Moreover, Sandback’s works on paper, which almost always relate to his sculptures, either as proposals or ex post facto documents, elide the material contingencies of built rooms and of the people inside them—they elide even the presence of shadows. To be sure, they do so with the utmost elegance; in Mark Godfrey’s words, the “drawing serves like a vanishing spell: it magics the diversions away.”3 But Sandback was nonetheless adamant that the drawings share the sculptures’ facticity. “In both cases,” he wrote, “the lines aren’t distillations of anything, but simple facts.”4 Even granting the drawings’ essential materiality, one might argue that the printed line is ineluctably notional. It involves the interposition of a matrix, which moves the drawn figure into an ideational, transitive space. And of course with prints there is no single version; all are copies without an original. It is striking, then, that Sandback should have insisted, “Prints are substance, tactility, color, mass.”5 In a 1985 interview Stephen Prokopoff observed, “Your prints are very rich in the exploration of the medium and seem to stand at an opposite pole from the general spartan statements of the drawings,” and Sandback replied, “Yes. The prints really are prints. They always make use of sculptural motifs, but beyond that they are properly graphics. They are dealing with themselves first as graphics and only secondarily as a system of representation or documentation.”6 This rather paradoxical premise underlies everything from the early photostats and blueprints of 1967–68 (made at Yale School of Art and Architecture; some were “recapitulated” in 1982 as photostats and in 1986 as lithographs) to the screenprints, lithographs, linoleum cuts, and etchings that soon followed. In some, as in Acht Variationen für die Galerie Heiner Friedrich [Eight Variations for Galerie Heiner Friedrich], of 1971–73, the contours of gallery walls are shown as faint lines, the

cords installed within them rendered a little more boldly, creating a time-lapse history of migrating rectangles. In a series of linoleum cuts, the first from 1975, faint white lines both describe shapes in space and run parallel with the paper’s surface. There are also lithographs and etchings in which a handful of straight lines are tossed against a featureless ground like flung sticks in the game Mikado (for which Sandback named a series of sculptures). Late monoprints, with lines of varying thickness against grounds of subtly shaded chine collé, seem even more freely composed (though none have the bright, smudged “expressionistic” markings of some drawings of the 1990s). Throughout, the prints share the sculptures’ perceptual provocations. In his preference for isometric renderings, which dispense with perspectival foreshortening, Sandback favored geometric figures whose near and far edges can seem to switch places. Photographs of sculptures reveal that they too generate these and other illusions, which can be captured—or produced—by a camera. Sandback was careful to distinguish illusionism—“making a picture of something,” which he insisted he didn’t do—from illusions. “Illusions are just as real as facts, and facts just as ephemeral as illusions,”7 he wrote. Indeed the optical tricks that occur in his work seem artifacts, rather than, as with peers like Robert Irwin or James Turrell (or younger artists such as Sarah Oppenheimer), motivating features. But if secondary in Sandback’s prints, they are nonetheless beguiling. While optical illusions can cause the space of prints to appear to warp, however slightly, the solidly inked fields of some—many of the linoleum cuts, for instance—contrarily emphasize their flatness. “I use color in simple constructive ways—to make a piece more recessive or aggressive, louder or softer, warmer or more brittle,”8 Sandback said of the sculpture’s cords and yarn. In the prints, he tended toward sober, fairly recessive shades associated with various commercial products: manila paper, blueprints, the green and black of chalkboards. Nonetheless, these colored fields are potent instantiations of substance and shape, as palpable as the spaces defined by stretched yarn. And they present a further paradox: while space is real in Sandback’s sculpture, and so are the lines stretched across it, the planes those lines so powerfully evoke are wholly imaginary. But when the prints have inked fields, actual planes are laid down; it is the un-inked lines inscribed within them that are, in a sense, imaginary. Often faint and ghostly white, these lines can be likened to the unavailable interiors, the folds in space, at the sculpture’s heart. In 1985, Sandback told an interviewer, “I wanted to make something without an interior.”9 And the following year, “I did have a strong gut feeling from the beginning . . . and that was wanting to be able to make sculpture that didn’t have an inside.”10 As early as 1975, he wrote, “Interiors are elusive. You can’t

ever see an interior. . . The interior is something you can only believe in, which holds all the parts together as a whole, you hope.”11 It is hard not to read this insistently repeated pursuit of an unknowable interior in psychological terms; at the least, it affirms the mystery of internal experience, and its value. In a whimsical viewing guide for children, Sandback recommended cat’s cradle as a (solitary) game conducive to the production of secret spaces. The kinship he felt with Giacometti12 can be seen, in this light, as indicating an interest in forms with perpetually receding cores, whose very presence always threatens to disappear. Novelist Ben Marcus defines a “Theory of Invisibility,” in The Age of Wire and String, that includes the “notion that the body put forth by any given member is a shield erected around an invisible or empty core.”13 It seems strikingly apt. But there is a trans-personal reading of Sandback’s values in which modesty and quietude serve as alternative guideposts to the kind of heroicsism long rampant in the art world. Creating pedestrian, habitable space for ordinary people—space strung, in Joan Simon’s eloquent words, “like an instrument to be sounded”14 —Sandback reached for harmonies pitched at the threshold of audibility, and nonetheless powerful. His prints achieve the same with particular resonance. Fred Sandback, “Notes/Appunti,” first published in Flash Art, no. 40 (March–May, 1973), reprinted in Friedemann Malsch and Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Fred Sandback (Vaduz: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2006), p. 88.

2 Sandback, “Untitled,” first published in Fred Sandback (New York: Zwirner & Wirth and Lawrence Markey Gallery, 2004), reprinted in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 94.

Mark Godfrey, “Fred Sandback’s Drawings,” in Fred Sandback: Drawings (Düsseldorf: Richter Verlag, 2014), p. 134.

Sandback, “Untitled,” in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 95.

Nancy Princenthal, “Line Readings: Fred Sandback’s Recent Drawings,” Print Collector’s Newsletter 22, no. 4 (1991), p. 132.

“An Interview: Fred Sandback and Stephen Prokopoff,” first published in The Art of Fred Sandback: A Survey (Champaign-Urbana, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, 1985), reprinted in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 111.

7 Fred Sandback, “Notes,” first published in Fred Sandback (Munich: Kunstraum, 1975), reprinted in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 90.

“Lines of Inquiry: Interview by Joan Simon,” first published in Art in America 85, no. 5 (May 1997), reprinted in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 136.

“An Interview, Fred Sandback and Stephen Prokopoff,” p. 108.

Fred Sandback, “Remarks on My Sculpture, 1966–86,” first published in Fred Sandback: Sculpture, 1966–86 (Munich: Fred Jahn, 1986), reprinted in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 119. 10

Sandback, “Notes,” in Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 90.

12 Sandback told Joan Simon, “Giacometti was a major love affair.” In “Lines of Inquiry: Interview by Joan Simon,” p. 138.

Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String (Urbana-Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998), p. 121. 13

Joan Simon, “On Fred Sandback and His Work,” Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, p. 190.

Untitled, 1970 Screenprint on yellow wove paper with cut edge. Edition of 100. Printer unknown. Published by Galerie Reckermann, Cologne. (Jahn 1; Sandback 3015) Sheet: 50.2 x 65.1 cm; 19 5/8 x 25 5/8 in.

Untitled, 1971–72 (from the portfolio Kölner Kunstmarkt) Screenprint on offset paper with cut edge. Edition of 180. Printer unknown. Published by Verein progressiver deutscher Kunsthändler e. V., Cologne. (Jahn 2; Sandback 3018) Sheet: 45.1 x 64.8 cm; 17 3/4 x 25 1/2 in.

Acht Variationen für die Galerie Heiner (Eight Variations for Galerie Heiner Friedrich), 1971–73 The complete portfolio of eight screenprints on yellow paper with cut edges. Edition of 50. Printer unknown. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 3–10; Sandback 3019) Sheet: 39.1 x 47.9 cm; 15 3/8 x 18 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1974 Black acrylic yarn. Edition of 5. (Sandback 2090.5) 162.6 x 121.9 x 15.2 cm; 64 x 48 x 6 in.

Untitled, 1975 Lithograph on handmade paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 18; Sandback 3027) Sheet: 48.5 x 64.1 cm; 19 x 25 1/4 in.

Untitled, 1975 Lithograph on handmade paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 19; Sandback 3028) Sheet: 48.5 x 64.1 cm; 19 x 25 1/4 in.

Untitled, 1975 Lithograph on handmade paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 21; Sandback 3030) Sheet: 48.5 x 64.1 cm; 19 x 25 1/4 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with deckle and torn edge. Edition of 10. Printed by the artist. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 28; Sandback 3037) Sheet: 31.1 x 25.1 cm; 12 1/4 x 9 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with deckle edge. Edition of 20. Printed by the artist. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 29; Sandback 3038) Sheet: 44.5 x 53 cm; 17 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with deckle edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 31; Sandback 3039) Sheet: 44.5 x 53 cm; 17 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 32; Sandback 3040) Sheet: 44.5 x 53 cm; 17 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 34; Sandback 3042) Sheet: 44.5 x 53 cm; 17 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1975 Linoleum cut on Japanese paper with cut edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 35; Sandback 3043) Sheet: 44.5 x 53 cm; 17 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled, 1976 The complete portfolio of six lithographs on handmade paper with cut edges. Edition of 25. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27; Sandback 3031) Sheet: 45.1 x 53 cm; 17 3/4 x 20 7/8 in.

Untitled (Four Variations of Two Diagonal Lines), 1976 The complete portfolio of four etchings with aquatint on Rives BFK paper with deckle edges. Edition of 35. Printed by Patricia Branstead. Published by Brooke Alexander, New York. (Jahn 55–58; Sandback 3046–3049) Sheet: 55.9 x 76.2 cm; 22 x 30 in.

Untitled, 1976 Etching with aquatint on Rives BFK paper with deckle edge. Edition of 40. Printed by Patricia Branstead. Published by Brooke Alexander, New York. (Jahn 59; Sandback 3050) Sheet: 59.4 x 90.2 cm; 23 3/8 x 35 1/2 in.

Untitled, 1976 Etching with aquatint on Rives BFK paper with deckle edge. Edition of 35. Printed by Patricia Branstead. Published by Brooke Alexander, New York. (Jahn 60; Sandback 3051) Sheet: 55.9 x 66 cm; 22 x 26 in.

Untitled, 1977 From the portfolio of ten lithographs on handmade paper with cut edges. Edition of 30. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 64–67, 70; Sandback 3055–3058, 3061) Sheet: 19.1 x 19.1 cm; 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.

Untitled, 1979 Lithograph on Japanese paper with cut edge. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Unpublished. (Jahn 73; Sandback 3064) Sheet: 24.1 x 24.1 cm; 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.

Untitled, 1979 The portfolio of two lithographs on Japanese paper with cut edges. Edition of 35. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 74–75; Sandback 3065–3066) Sheet: 35.9 x 35.9 cm; 14 1/8 x 14 1/8 in.

Untitled, 1979 The complete portfolio of eight linoleum cuts on Japanese paper with cut edges. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Heiner Friedrich, Munich. (Jahn 76–83; Sandback 3069–3076) Sheet: 34.9 x 34.9 cm; 13 3/4 x 13 3/4 in.

Untitled, 1981 Lithograph on wove paper with cut edge. Edition of 40. Printed by Bodmer Weber Offset Druck AG, Zurich. Published by Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zurich. (Jahn 84; Sandback 3071) Sheet: 29.5 x 41.6 cm; 11 5/8 x 16 3/8 in.

Untitled, (from Serie von 22 Photostaten/Series of Twenty–Two Photostats), 1982 From the portfolio of twenty–two photostats on paper with cut edges. Edition of 7. Printer unknown. Published by Edition Fred Jahn, Munich. (Jahn 93–94, 101–102, 105 ; Sandback 3079 –3080, 3087, 3090) Sheet: 17.8 x 12.7 cm; 7 x 5 in.; or 12.7 x 17.8; 5 x 7 in.

F端r Matthias Ignaz (For Matthias Ignaz), 1983 Lithograph on Japanese paper with cut edge. Edition of approximately 100. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Fred Jahn, Munich. (Sandback 3119) Sheet: 27.6 x 21.9 cm; 10 7/8 x 8 5/8 in.

Untitled, 1984 Lithograph on Japanese paper with deckle edge. Edition of 20. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Fred Jahn, Munich. Sheet: 62.9 x 92.4 cm; 24 3/4 x 36 3/8 in.

Untitled, 1984 Lithograph on Japanese paper with cut edge. Edition of 35. Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Fred Jahn, Munich. (Jahn 111; Sandback 3118) Sheet: 38.4 x 49.8 cm; 15 1/8 x 19 5/8 in.

Untitled (from Twenty–Two Constructions from 1967), 1986 From the portfolio of twenty–two lithographs on Japanese paper with cut edges. Edition of 35 (edition nos. 1–18 printed in black; edition nos. 19–35 printed in green). Printed by Karl Imhof, Munich. Published by Edition Fred Jahn, Munich. (Jahn 113–134; Sandback 3093–3115) Sheet: 27.9 x 21.6 cm; 11 x 8 1/2 in.; or 21.6 x 27.9 cm; 8 1/2 x 11 in.

Untitled, 1990 Monoprint on Rives BFK paper with torn and deckle edge. Unique print. Printed by Robert Townsend. Published by Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts. (Sandback 3167) Sheet: 76.2 x 55.9 cm; 30 x 22 in.

Untitled, 1990 Monoprint with chine collĂŠ on Rives BFK paper with deckle edge. Unique print. Printed by Robert Townsend. Published by Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts. (Sandback 3176) Sheet: 67.3 x 52.7 cm; 26 1/2 x 20 3/4 in.

Untitled, 1990 Etching with pochoir and chine collĂŠ on paper with deckle edge. Unique print. Printed by Robert Townsend. Published by Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts. (Sandback 3172) Sheet: 34.3 x 40.6 cm; 13 1/2 x 16 in.

Untitled, 1994 Pink acrylic yarn. Edition of 9. (Sandback 2128.6) 50 x 50 x 50 cm; 19 5/8 x 19 5/8 x 19 5/8.

Untitled, 2000 Lithograph on paper in two parts, with cut edge. Edition of 30. Printed by Bodmer Weber Offset Druck AG, Zurich. Published by Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zurich. (Sandback 3016) Overall: 27.9 x 43.5 cm; 11 x 17 1/8 in.

BIOGRAPHY Fred Sandback was born in 1943 in Bronxville, New York. After receiving a B.A. in philosophy at Yale University, he studied sculpture at Yale School of Art and Architecture. In 1981 the Dia Art Foundation initiated and maintained a museum of Sandback’s work, the Fred Sandback Museum in Winchendon, Massachusetts, which was open until 1996. His work is permanently on view at Dia:Beacon. Sandback died in 2003. A detailed illustrated exhibition history and bibliography, 1967–2005, together with the artist’s collected writings and interviews, is published in the exhibition catalogue Fred Sandback, Vaduz: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2005. A complete exhibition history and bibliography is available online at www.fredsandbackarchive.org.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 1968–2015 1968 Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf. Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich. 1969 Dwan Gallery, New York. Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld. 1971 Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zürich. 1972 John Weber Gallery, New York. 1973 Kunsthalle Bern. 1975 Kunstraum München, Munich. 1977 Lisson Gallery, London. 1978 Institute for Art and Urban Resources, P.S. 1, Long Island City, New York. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1981 Fred Sandback Museum, Winchendon, Massachusetts (until 1996). 1985 Kunsthaus, Zürich. 1986 Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim. 1987 Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover. Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster. 1988 Dia Art Foundation, New York. 1989 Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. 1990 Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York. 1991 Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm. Galerie Jürgen Becker, Hamburg. 1992 Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna. 1996 Dia Center for the Arts, New York. 1997 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago. Bregenzer Kunstverein, Palais Thurn und Taxis, Bregenz. 1998 Galerie Meert Rihoux, Brussels. 1999 Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 2001 Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. 2002 Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. 2003 Dia:Beacon, New York (continuing). Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. 2004 Zwirner & Wirth, New York.

2005 Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, England. Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz. Traveled to: Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz. 2011 Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado. 2014 Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Traveled to: Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany; Museum Wiesbaden. 2015 Pulitzer Arts, St. Louis. Glenstone, Potomac, MD.

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Art Institute of Chicago. British Museum, London. Dia Art Foundation, New York. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. Kunsthaus Zürich. Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz. Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Menil Collection, Houston. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main. Museum of Modern Art, New York. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Published by Sims Reed Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Fred Sandback Prints 1970 – 2000’ 13th October – 11th November 2015. All works by Fred Sandback © 2015 Fred Sandback Archive. © 2015 Sims Reed Gallery. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or in part, without permission from the publisher, Sims Reed Gallery. Designed by Lucy Harbut. Printed by Dayfold. 75

SIMS R E E D 76

GAL L E RY