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Lot Essay
‘[My work] doesn’t take over a space, but rather coexists with it’ F. Sandback
Executed in 1968, Fred Sandback’s Violet Day-glo Corner Piece is an elegant elastic cord sculpture from the artist’s early oeuvre. Designed specifically to occupy the corners of a room, the work demonstrates Sandback’s ability to delineate and bifurcate interior space through an extraordinary economy of means. Executed in a variety of Day-glo hues, using exceptionally thin strands of cord and stainless steel, the Corner Pieces describe volumes that are potentially limitless, subject to as many variations as there are angles from which to view the sculpture. In doing so, these works make visible the volume that is traditionally hidden inside a sculpture, and render immaterial surfaces that would previously be tangible. ‘Surfaces seem to imply that what’s interesting is either in front of them or behind them’, the artist explains. ‘Interiors are elusive. You can’t ever see an interior’ (F. Sandback, quoted in Fred Sandback, Munich 1975, pp. 11-12). Often cited as a forerunner of installation art, Sandback toys with our spatial awareness by highlighting the invisible volumes and densities that silently constitute the areas we inhabit.
Executed in 1968, Fred Sandback’s Violet Day-glo Corner Piece is an elegant elastic cord sculpture from the artist’s early oeuvre. Designed specifically to occupy the corners of a room, the work demonstrates Sandback’s ability to delineate and bifurcate interior space through an extraordinary economy of means. Executed in a variety of Day-glo hues, using exceptionally thin strands of cord and stainless steel, the Corner Pieces describe volumes that are potentially limitless, subject to as many variations as there are angles from which to view the sculpture. In doing so, these works make visible the volume that is traditionally hidden inside a sculpture, and render immaterial surfaces that would previously be tangible. ‘Surfaces seem to imply that what’s interesting is either in front of them or behind them’, the artist explains. ‘Interiors are elusive. You can’t ever see an interior’ (F. Sandback, quoted in Fred Sandback, Munich 1975, pp. 11-12). Often cited as a forerunner of installation art, Sandback toys with our spatial awareness by highlighting the invisible volumes and densities that silently constitute the areas we inhabit.