‘THERE'S SOMETHING ‘ NOT-MINIMALIST IN SANDBACK'S MINIMALISM'
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Presence in absentia
Jack Mottram looks through the history of FRED SANDBACK’s Minimalist interventions on show at the Fruitmarket Gallery.
‘ he first sculpture I made with a piece of string and a little wire.‘ Fred Sandback
wrote. ‘was the outline of a rectangular solid — a 2" x 4" — lying on the floor. It was a casual act. but it seemed to open up a lot of possibilities for me. I could assert a certain place or volume in its full materiality without occupying and obscuring it.‘ This brief. understated statement. marking the 20th anniversary of the ‘casual act' in I966 that would come to define the centre of Sandback‘s work shares
something with that practice. It has a lightness of
touch. belying a deep purpose. it has clarity. simplicity and. if Minimalist sculptures can be said to share personality traits with their sculptors. it also seems to contain a hint of self-deprecation. Sandback‘s best known constructions. mostly untitled lines. planes and shapes marked out in space by lengths of coloured yarn or wire. drawn tight. are undoubtedly minimalist: they are not quite Minimalist. They are spare. of course. and universal. and. in describing geometric shapes. they adhere to the superficial constants of Minimalist style. But there's something distinctly not-Minimalist in Sandback‘s minimalism. These are not works to walk around. look at and consider. as you would. say. one
of Sol LeWitt’s faceted pyramids. or an assembly of
neon tubes by Dan Flavin. Instead. they are works to step over — existing as they do in what Sandback called ‘pedestrian space‘ — and look through: they are not just objects with which the viewer can form a relationship. but objects that work to reconfigure the viewer’s relationship with the space around them.
These pieces lack the almost m'erweening certainty common to much Minimalist sculpture. displaying instead a sort of uncertain. transient. impermanent quality — as well as being not quite there. for all that these works transform space. they are transformed by it. never the same twice. dependent on and altered by their architectural surroundings. and. to co-opt jargon applied to very different media. time-based. The last point raises a problem for this posthumous retrospective (the artist died in 2003). since. by connecting ceiling to floor. or seeming to balance a trapezoid at the jtmction of two walls. Sandback was an installation artist of a kind. bound to allow a new gallery to affect an old work. however precise the written instructions he liled for each sculpture were. or however much he dismissed his characterisation as an installer. As well as being the first chance to see Sandback‘s work in Scotland. then. this is an opportunity to see his sculptures installed without his guiding hand. though whether this will result in a loss. or add a purity of sorts. is impossible to say.
The show is. too. a wide-ranging and full retrospective. moving beyond the canonical Sandback to include early sculptures in metal. works on paper and reliefs. One of these. from 2003. seems key: in following a Mondrian painting — '(‘omposition With Red. Yellow. Blue‘. I930 — Sandback copies the lines and scale of the original. But renders it in flatly monochromatic black.
Fred Sandback, the Fruitmarket Gallery, Sat 18 March-Sun 14 May.
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
* What Makes You and I Different An excellently curated show that brings together work by internationally acclaimed artists including Mathew Barney. Cindy Sherman. Beagles and Ramsay. Harrison and Wood. Matt Collishaw and ijrn Melhus. amongst many others. Tramway, Glasgow until Sun 25 Mar. See review, page 94.
* Fred Sandback The minimalist installation art by the late American artist subtly charges the galleries at the Fruitmarket in this major survey of his work. Sandback's gorgeous interventions use coloured string to mark the edges of absent geometric forms, framing space and temporarily laying claim to it. The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 78 Mar—Sun 74 May. See preview, opposite.
* Luke Fowler An exhibition of new work by the Glasgow- based artist. Fowler continues to question the illusory barriers between art, the archive and documentary, this time taking the Scratch Orchestra as subject matter. He deconstructs then reconstructs a fractured history of the orchestra, examining the aesthetic and political problems that haunted the project. The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 18 Mar.
* Katy Dove Dove exhibits recently commissioned uplifting and unmissable animated films. with supporting watercolours and prints also on show. Her abstract aesthetic draws on early 20th century ideas, where form and colour are freed from subject matter. creating a sense of optimism and positivity that is infectious but absent from most contemporary forays into abstraction. Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, until Sat 8 Apr.
75—32 Mar 2’13"; THE LIST 93