Text by James Lawrence

Known for sculptures that outline planes and volumes in space using the humblest of materials, Fred Sandback (1943–2003) was an American artist whose work is informed by a minimalist artistic vocabulary. Though Sandback employed metal wire and elastic cord in his earliest works, the artist soon dispensed with these materials and began using acrylic yarn to create sculptures that produced perceptual illusions while addressing their physical surroundings—the “pedestrian space,” as Sandback called it, of everyday life. Throughout the course of his career, yarn enabled the artist to elaborate on the phenomenological experience of space and volume with unwavering consistency and ingenuity. Fred Sandback: Decades is the third in a series of illustrated hardcover monographs on the artist published by David Zwirner. Documenting the eponymous exhibition held at the gallery in 2012, this award-winning publication covers a selection of Sandback’s work dating from 1968 to 2008, thus spanning five decades of production. With ninety reproductions in color, this beautifully produced catalogue includes a fully illustrated chronology with selected biographical and bibliographical material, as well as new scholarship on Sandback by art historian James Lawrence.